Perception

Some well meaning friend said to me, "Ah, God never gives you more than you can carry", meaning life events. "What the f*** are you saying?" I thought. Really I could have just jumped up and slapped her violently to her senses, a miracle indeed, but anyway I'm thinking now how much can we bear? I'm aware that everyone thinks I'm in one hell of a miserable situation, I'm not, but that's the perception. We all have our own private tragedies, and indeed some people do seem to manage to glide through life with nothing so much as a broken fingernail, but not many. Just of the top of my head I can think of all sorts of things that I know have happened to people I know. Death of a child, death of a partner/parent at a young age, murder, bankruptcy, loss of job, loss of home, severe illness, divorce and so on, there are probably many more. But its all about loss and is never of our choosing.

We always perceive our own situations as never being as bad as someone else's. I have a friend who went blind overnight, she literally woke up and found she had gone blind. Now, I think that's just awful for her, yet she has said to me that she couldn't even imagine my situation, and yet I don't feel its that bad. See what I mean, perceptions vary enormously don't they?