"Enduring your pain because someone else is suffering more isn't something you should have to do" (okay I forgot the exact quote but that doesn't matter),
Y E S. I can't express how much I agree with that and how much I've said it on deaf ears. We can't go around comparing our problems like some sort of pissing contest to see who had the worst day and then ONLY let the person who we THINK has it worst let his pain out. The very notion is insane and it's insulting to everyone involved. No one should be alowed to tell you how you feel and should definitely not be allowed to stop you from trying to feel better or being comforted. Pain is FAR from objective. I mean, it's not even real. It's literally an emotion we create OURSELVES (even physical pain. It's just a reaction to tell your brain something is dangerous. You can train your body to be more resilient or numb to certain types of pain). How can ANYONE compare that? Who even has the right?
@comeonnow0 Except that very notion is insane. People can't live their lives without tripping over someone else toes. The more we push ourselves and everyone withhold their pain and change themselves to accommodate for others so they're comfortable, the less comfortable we make the individual and more pain we cause to ourselves. All pain is very REAL pain. You can't tell someone what their feeling isn't real pain when you aren't that person. You don't have their feelings; what's important to you isn't to them (and vice versa); you don't have their personality; you didn't experience their childhood; you AREN'T them.
Let's continue with the situation of someone's relative having died after suffering a disease and someone who had a lover's spat. How can you say the spat is less important? People have committed SUICIDE (or they've self harmed) after a bad breakup or a terrible fight. And even without those stakes we're talking about two people's happiness. What is more important than that? You really wanna go down this rabbit hole? What if these lovers have kids and them not making up results in one leaving the other a singe parent (and the kids losing their parents). What if they're getting married and suddenly all the money and preparations their families have made are going down the drain? Really if we do this from a logical perspective the relative dead of an illness they've been suffering for is just less painful. 1) They've been suffering from a deadly illness, so not only is their death expected (giving plenty of time for the family to prepare, say there final goodbyes, and make good memories), but it's actually better that their SUFFERING relative is finally at peace. 2) Death is inevitable 0. We should know that from day one. Literally all of us will die, and while we can postpone that final hour and draw out that last breath, ultimately we WILL die, and either we die first or we see the people around us die first. We all KNOW that. And more importantly NO ONE can do anything about that once it's come to pass. However, it is possible for those two lovers to get back together and no one knows what's happening next for them. They are full of potential which I would argue is more important than anything else any day (acknowledge that most of what I say is to make a "point" (as in following what I say about pain initially, it doesn't matter if we KNOW something will happen, when it happens it's still allowed to hurt and we're allowed to speak out about it), but no, I do seriously believe potential is more important than pretty much anything else any day (I mean just imagine the possibility of anything; sorry tangent)).
The bigger problem is once you start going down this rabbit hole there is NO coming back up and it NEVER stops. Sometimes relative just suffered and died? Well a village just got flooded halfway around the world, their pain doesn't matter because it doesn't compare to all those people drowning. A village just drowned? Well a little boy saw a terrorist gun down a hundred people at a carnival today. The village doesn't matter. A little boy is scarred for life and a hundred people were brutally murdered? Well who cares? Three planes just crashed into each other and fell into a populated city killing thousands. Oh, well actually none of this matters because we'll all die eventually anyway. Who cares about dying when the sun's gonna explode making life in the solar system anyway (in some millions or billions of years)? Actually nothing matters at all ever because the universe is approaching entropy and decay at all times anyway. Ignoring all that, I find the notion of humans trying to avoid making other's pain worse when all we do I cause pain for our own self satisfaction. We destroy entire habitats to build and produce. We breed other animals and keep them to make the best ones to make bets on or eat. For crying out loud we've forever ruined dogs by domesticating them (and will put them down because no one wants one or to "put them out of their misery" (but that sick relative should just keep suffering and that person paying their medical bill)) and literally inbred them (causing numerous genetic problems) for funnies and prestige. Who are any of us to complain about our problems considering all that?
I find it incredibly ironic you complained about the MC giving the advice as "Black and white", but only painted a black and white picture yourself. I just want to take a minute to imagine all the MANY possibilities of that very very vague example you gave. What if my relative is far removed ("I just learned my cousin I never met and am barely related to DIES, your problems don't matter)? What if I just don't care about that relative (for ahy number of reasons)? What if that relative beat me? Or raped me? Likewise what about the person that had a fight with their lover? What if that fight ended in domestic violence? What if they live together or have joint accounts and the other person decides to steal everything and run away? Pain isn't something we can rationalize or compare.
The fact of the matter is, we can go on and on about understanding another person's pain, but at the end of the day we just can't. We can't even tell how much it's hurting them. Even if we went through the same situation we can't tell them how we feel or that we know how they feel (seriously I just want to punch anyone that has ever said that). We're individuals and are affected by things differently. What we can do is feel our own pain and we can try to do something ourselves to Allievate and we are allowed to feel better or speak out about our troubles just as much as anyone else. Quite frankly, I don't have to care that you're relative died. I didn't know them; I don't know you. I can choose to, but if I have troubles myself those are my priority. I'm not going to worsen my own mental or emotional state by comparing my pain to someone else when I can't solve their problem or make their pain go away, no one should have to. We choose to express our current situation and try to convey our pain as a method of feeling better and finding comfort, but it isn't the responsibility of anyone to ignore their own troubles because you (or someone else) thinks you had a worse day. Again no one can live their lives without tripping over someone else's toes, but we're all allowed to at least try and seek our own happiness, solve our own problems, and deal with our own pain. I don't care if your relative died and my favorite character from a book just died. No one has the right to tell me to ignore my pain and sorrow because they think their's is worse. As I kid I can't count how often I cried and felt pain from stuff I know think is pretty stupid, and I can't count how often I was told it didn't matter and I shouldn't be sad. That didn't make the pain go away or feel any less real. In fact it only made it worse. Most of the time I left that conversation still hurt over whatever stupid thing got me AND over the fact that I got sad over something I "shouldn't" have. A lot of the times I needed up hating myself for feeling what I "should" or acting like I'm supposed to. The fact that I felt pain over something started to become pain in of itself. It's not a problem anymore, but that's where we head if we start trying to control how people are allowed to feel and set standards for what those feelings mean or how much they matter. We're all just human. Silly, small, fininite, and far from mind readers or empathats. None of us have the right to compare pain, when we can't even feel anyone's but our own. Money may not matter to you but it matters to me. People may not matter to me but they matter to you. Fictional characters may not matter to her but they matter to him. Those were just random examples, but just no one or thing or whatever can tell us individually what's more important or feels worst when lost (well from a feelings, emotional, and "pain" perspective).
TL;Dr: Basically everything is just to support the first paragraph before the @, I probably get too into arguments.
