This summer I finally got my hands on Mindy Kaling’s book Is Everyone Hanging out without Me?  (It was checked out of my library for months!)  I enjoyed it far more than I’d anticipated.  Kaling is sharp, funny, and forthright, and some chapters were hilarious — and incredibly observant.

Here’s one of my favorite quotes:

A note about me: I do not think stress is a legitimate topic of conversation, in public anyway. No one wants to hear how stressed out anyone else is, because most of the time everyone is stressed out. Going on and on in detail about how stressed out I am isn’t conversation. It’ll never lead anywhere. No one is going to say “Wow, Mindy, you really have it especially bad. I have heard some stories of stress, but this just takes the cake.”

It’s so true… and such a strange phenomenon, really, that we choose to brag about stress.