Today when I was turning the corner coming home after grocery shopping the back of my car flew open and groceries went tumbling into the middle of the street. I pulled over and waited for cars to stop running over things, to pick up any undamaged bags. A lady stopped her car to help me. I didn't expect this. She was shocked, "I can't believe they're just running over your food, and nobody stopped to help! I saw what happened. I'd be screaming right now if it were me" etc. I thanked her for her help, but only lost a few groceries, most remained in the vehicle, so it was a pretty minor deal. The whole thing didn't cause much reaction in me at all. For some people, it would have. The lady helping me was clearly shook up, and she was just a witness. There are much weightier matters I'm dealing with currently. And that's the thing. Everything else is compared to what's normal for you. The daily pressures you face are your normal. Random events either fall within that normal, or are higher-stress than normal. And your normal readjusts all the time.
Someone born with a deformity, or into extreme poverty, or extremely fortunate and beautiful or whatever has that as their baseline. That's their normal. A change from that, either good or bad creates a stress. When you see someone in a difficult situation the tendency is to compare it to our own situation, and feel bad or scared or worried or whatever for them, because if we were suddenly thrust into their shoes that's how we'd feel. Knowing how to help or deal with people in situations we've never ourselves faced is difficult because not only do we not know what it's like, in the back of our minds we probably don't want to know what it's like, don't want to imagine having to deal with it ourselves. Common stressors most people go through are easier because we've either experienced them ourselves or don't have too hard of a time imagining experiencing them.
I'm thankful for all the experiences I've had. It makes life so much easier. The more you go through and survive the smaller other problems seem. So, you have on one hand everyone starting at a different baseline, and then adding in your life experiences increases where your baseline sits. Funny, may seem crazy, but years ago I actually envied the struggles some people went through, that I didn't have the same opportunities to prove myself and overcome such situations that they did. I didn't get to find out if I could handle it. Pretty stupid of me wasn't it?
A few things I've never wanted to go through were having a disabled child, damaging my mind in some way, or losing a limb, or getting severely burned/disfigured in some way. Thankfully I've gotten to avoid all of those things. Definitely don't want to find out if I could handle those things or a few others.