A victim, according to Webster’s dictionary, is a person who has been attacked, injured, robbed, killed, cheated, or fooled by someone else, or harmed by an unpleasant event. Everyone gets attacked, injured, cheated, fooled, and harmed during their life — if not physically, then emotionally. And everyone gets harmed by unpleasant events. We’re all victims,…

Our culture now revolves around a giant game of Victim Olympics. Prizes are awarded to whoever suffers most in the opinion of the judges. Schools teach children how to demonstrate suffering because that’s the skill that our culture rewards. There are many events in the Victim Olympics—some based on inborn traits and others open to…

Commentary People often say you shouldn’t take things personally, but that doesn’t really help you. It mostly helps the person who’s saying it. It helps a friend to stay on your good side by agreeing that your boss or your spouse is the problem. It helps a parent bond with their child by agreeing that…

Commentary Normally, I don’t like victim Olympics. I don’t like hearing people compete to make their suffering sound worse than others. But now the game has changed. People are saying that the suffering of your ancestors gets encoded into your genes. That means my ancestors’ story could win me a lot of victim points. Hear…