Hardships, among other negative occurrences in life, are inevitable. It’s a bit of a harsh reality, but its validity remains constant; life isn’t a walk in the park for the majority of us, and it is highly probable that we will encounter situations at times we rather wouldn’t.
Hardships and obstacles can take many different shapes and forms for different people. What presents itself as a significant challenge for one person may be met with causality for someone else, and vice versa; we as humans are subjective creatures, so it makes sense to acknowledge we assess and address hardships differently.
Something that has always frustrated me is the concept of comparing our own hardships to those of others and determining their worth. If you have experienced this, you arguably know what I’m talking about, and you can also likely relate to it being a frustrating and shitty experience.
Say, for example, you have recently lost a pet. The loss is tremendous for you, and you’re telling a friend how much you have been affected by this loss emotionally. If your friend responds to your grief with a more severe example of their own, for example, saying they recently lost their parent and therefore their sorrow takes precedence over yours, it is arguable that you’re going to be feeling angry, insignificant, and discarded.
There is no benefit to comparing someone else’s struggles to our own in order to determine the weight, or value, of said challenge. It is unrealistic to expect someone to react to grief the same way we would in the same situation, and it is damn rude to imply that the reason someone is struggling isn’t warranted enough to be considered a true struggle.
As the saying goes, we are all fighting our own battles that the vast majority of others know nothing about. Be kind, be receptive, and be empathetic.
ontheedgeofeverything 
I used to call this: Everybody’s pain is painful. If we understand this it’s easy to empathise and not dismiss the other.
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I absolutely agree. Thank you for reading! 🙂
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