Quora: On comparing woes
Q: Why do people complain when most of the time, other people have it much worse?
A: Because they are living their own life, not that of the others.
We may have empathy for the pain of other people, but we can only experience our own. Comparing yourself to others, both in terms of happiness and success, or misery and failure, is ill advised.
What may seem trivial to one person, is important to someone else.
Take farting, for example. A perfectly normal bodily function. Not always pleasant or welcome, but natural. Did you know that people who have farted in front of others, have later committed suicide due to shame?
The event may seem trivial to us, a minor mishap, but that may not be the case for everyone. So when we judge others, assuming that we know what real suffering is and that the person complaining has no reason for doing so, we can only judge them by our own standards, not theirs.
