Using yesterday’s post as a jumping-off point, I wanted to shift the perspective to an unrelated but adjacent topic.

When I was growing up, I was always told to finish the food on my plate because there were starving children in Africa. At face value, there is some logic to this idea. But when I thought about it even for a moment, I realized that I wasn’t living in Africa.

As unfortunate as some people have it elsewhere, my discomfort is relative to my own situation — not theirs.

When my friend mentioned that she and her family have had to start from zero several times in recent years, it hit me like a freight train. It made me sick to my stomach. I couldn’t begin to imagine what that must feel like. I still can’t.

The fact that she always holds her head up high, is always smiling, and never seems to complain about anything blows my mind even further.

This morning, within five minutes of each other, my acupuncturist and my massage therapist both called to cancel this afternoon’s appointments. I was incredibly bummed out as I’ve been looking forward to both.

Sure, I have real problems too. But I think of the things that upset me on a regular basis, the daily annoyances that nag at me and drain my mental energy. They’re nothing. When compared to the real problems that people face, they’re less than nothing.

But that’s not how it works.

Perspective and comparison can be humbling. But without, we only have our direct experience. And that experience is real. In those moments of discomfort and frustration, those feelings are real. Relative to our own experience, however amazing and fortunate that may be in the grand scheme of things, the problems we face are real.

Even the internal pain I felt when my friend told me of her situation, that came from a place that only exists because the world I grew up in was different than her’s. Where others in her situation would feel empathy, my inability to relate caused me to feel sympathy.

There is no wrong in living a different life than others. And there is nothing shameful about feeling momentary anger or disappointment in trivial things. Because those things bring frustration and discomfort relative to your situation.

The important thing is to realize this fact and not take it for granted. Be grateful that you live an existence where you can be pained by the trivial.

Don’t squander it by feeling guilt over things beyond your control.