It Could Have Been Worse

One of my pet peeves - at last count I had about a million - is someone saying, "It could have been worse." What does that mean. If your house burns down and you lose everything and have no insurance, isn’t that ‘worse’ enough? How about you are in a wreck and break your arms and legs, do you really want to hear, "It could have been worse?"

I have never know anyone that was comforted by telling them that it could have been worse. When I had a root canal that went horribly wrong, it could not have been worse.

I talked with a man today about politics and government and guess what he said? "It could be worse." That may be true. There are lots of countries that have worse governments. They ought to fix themselves. What I want to hear is how to fix the one we’ve got.

There is an old joke about two guys talking. One tells the other that a mutual friend came home early and caught his wife with another man at his house. He shot the guy. The second man responded with, "It could have been worse." The first man said, "How could it have been worse? He is going to jail and his cheating wife is going to get all his money." The second man replied, "If he had come home early yesterday, he would have shot me."

In this case, I guess it could have been worse.

PMO
©2011