Well at least you're not a starving kid in India
I have noticed in general that when someone is feeling bad about something or in a state of discontent with their life, that someone always tries to put their problems into world perspective by saying things like "well there are dying children in third world countries...at least you don't have it that bad". But I have come to the conclusion that just because your problems are in general not nearly as extreme as the problems of less fortunate people, they can have an equal or even more damaging impact on their emotions.
My theory is that it is possible for an upper-middle class citizen of a technologically advanced society to experience more emotional suffering than someone living in a third world country, starving, homeless, etc within their own context. What I mean by this, is that in my opinion, everyone has a certain number of things they need, both physical and emotional. For the purpose of this explanation, the needs will be represented by rungs on a ladder, and the number of needs will be 5.
We'll also say that there are a total of 100 rungs on the ladder. The ladder as a whole represents the overall quality of life that people are experiencing. So lets say Bob is a college student at some university. He's a social nobody, his parents ditched him when he was a child, and he loves his best friend who will be called Donna who is about to be married to the "perfect guy" and it's been established that there's no way he'll ever be with Donna. Now clearly this would make him very depressed. It's common for a sensitive person experiencing a high level of depression to have thoughts (however serious) of suicide.
It's also common for a person to want to express their pain to someone, while experiencing a sense of hopelessness. For some reason, people feel that it is helpful to try and put their friends' depression into context. Yet the opposite is true. This often makes the person, Bob feel that you are trying to say that his problems are less important, to which you will find that Bob takes high offense to.
Not only is it offensive to Bob, it is also not necessarily true that Bob has it better off than say a one armed starving guy (who we will call Dave...yes, Dave) living in a third-world country. (A random scenario, but just about any applies to what I'm saying).
It's not necessarily false, but it most likely is. You see, on the ladder, Bob is somewhere in the middle, while Dave is most likely somewhere closer to the bottom. This would instantly make most people say that Bob has it better off than Dave, but consider this.
While Dave's five rungs are on a lower location than Bob's, it is still possible for Bob to experience far heavier emotional damage than Dave. See, the location on the ladder has very little to do with relative quality of life. Lets say in order to be happy, you had to have at least 4 rungs out of your allotted seven. Well in the context of Bob's life, out of the potential happiness that Bob would be able to experience, compared to the happiness he has experienced, we will say he has 3 rungs. While Dave has had a rough life overall, out of his potential allotted happiness of 7 rungs, he may very well have 5 or 6.
This concept is similar to that of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, but it is slightly different. People make these comparisons based on their own context of life. Based on the area of the ladder that they are used to, but in reality, someone who has lived in a certain area of the ladder for a long time cannot say that someone who live lower on the ladder has it worse off than someone who lives on a high area, because it has nothing to do with the location of the ladder, it has to do with how many rungs of your alloted seven do you have built?
So for someone to say that Bob has it better off than a starving kid in India, is not helpful at all and is not even NECESSARILY true. That kid is USED to living how he lives. That's all he's ever known, so he's used to it, and therefore it is possible for him to be happy. While his situation is low on the ladder, if he has all seven rungs he can still be happy.
It would be different if you said "well, Bob, at least you don't have it as bad as someone who has grown up in a rich family, and is used to being pampered and everything going perfectly, but who recently lost his money, had 12 of his family members die in a fire, and is now homeless". That statement would be more likely to be true, despite the fact that it is still completely not helpful and entirely counterproductive.
I just thought I'd share my theory with you and see what you all think. :D
-Rain
