The past few days has been a blur of different little annoyances that have all culminated into a bottle of aspirins sitting on my counter, ready for use. 

Over the past few days, just about every appliance in my house has broken down, I've had to make an emergency visit to a doctor for an eye injury and I think that I've stubbed my toes about 45 times in the past few days. 

My little episodes pale by comparison to the troubles that some people face.  There are so many people out there who are facing horrendous battles and it helps to put that into perpsective.  However, one can't help feeling frustrated all the same when these things happen in bunches like this.

It seems that everything is relevant to what it is that we, ourselves are used to facing in life.  For some, these little annoyances are simply that and the very least of their worries.  While for others, it's a real upsetter that can send them over the edge.  So, why is it that we're proned to complain, even though we have it good by comparison to others?

Well, in reading a book once (and, don't ask me which one now, I read so many) that gave a little analogy.  Two men are waiting in a hospital emergency ward, waiting to be seen by a doctor.  One man has a broken leg and is hardly complaining while the other is waiting to be seen for a broken toe and is driving everyone around him insane, complaining about it and the wait time.  Well, one would think that the man with the broken leg would be the one doing the most complaining, but instead, the man with broken toe was the one doing it all!

Each one of us has a different tolerance level.  One person may be able to handle dozens of mishaps, pain or frustration and let it roll off of their backs.  But, another may have very little tolerance for any of this and just about go off the deep end over it. 

For both men in the Emergency ward, the pain was tolerable for the man with the broken leg, but for the man with the broken toe, it was unbearable.  Does that make him a whimp and the other man a brave hero? 

Strangely enough, the answer to that is not necessarily.  The  man with the broken leg may have a far higher pain threshold and be able to bear it a lot easier while the man with the broken toe may have a very low level of pain tolerance and it feel excrutiating to him.  That means that the man with the broken leg is not necessarily feeling the pain as badly as the man with the broken toe! 

So, what does all of this mean?  It means that we cannot look upon another person's mishaps, or pains in life and judge him against how WE would react to the same circumstances because we are all different on what and how we can deal with things in our lives.  It's a hard concept to grasp, but it's necessary to understand that idea.  Were we to judge everyone else according to our "standards", we'd be doing a disservice to others and judging them unfairly.  They are not us and we are not them.  This is where the old saying comes in....."Never judge a man unless you've walked a mile in their shoes.".  We cannot know what they are really feeling.  We can only know how we would feel but, we are not them and we are not walking in their shoes. 

So, while I'm hobbling around on my bruised toes, trying to find the phone numbers for repair people and doing it with one eye patched shut, swearing as I go along through frustration, (or, at the costs of the service calls!) I'll try to remember that this is just a small pain in the rear by comparison to what some people are going through.  BUT, I will also allow myself to feel the frustration, do the cursing and take my aspirin for the headache that I've been dealing with for days now because no matter what else anyone else is going through, these things are a pain in the rear to ME right now! 

I only wish someone else could walk in my shoes since I can't get them on over my poor swollen toes!