Say you are given three options to choose from--each a different real-life problem someone is probably struggling with at that very moment--and you must pick the one you think is the worst, the issue that would cause a person to suffer the most. It might look something like this:

1. You are clinically depressed and even though nothing is notably wrong in your life right now, you still go through each day feeling alone, lost, and like you'll never be able to climb out of the pit you find yourself stuck at the bottom of on the daily.

2. Your best friend just died.

3. You were born in an impoverished village where you were not expected to live past age 5 and every day is a struggle to find enough food and clean water to feed your large family, who currently occupies a hovel in the slum surrounding one of the biggest garbage dumps in the world.

What do you choose? Probably not number one. Its hard to reconcile the fact that some well-to-do kid with depression may have it worse than a malnourished slum-dweller. And here in lies the crux of the matter: how can we talk about suffering on a comparative scale when the heart of it lies rooted in our individual minds? How can it possibly be moral to quantify such a relative, case-dependent concept? Of course, it's easy to classify suffering when you compare large-scale atrocities, like genocide, to suffering on a much smaller scale, like that in the example of the person who just lost their best friend. The cost to the world in each of these cases is very much comparable: a genocide has a galaxy of implications and consequences for humanity, whereas the death of one person will permanently affect only a confined circle of those closest to them. But to the mother of the dead friend? Her whole world is consumed by grief, much like the nation mourning the senseless mass murdering of its people. A child lost is still a child lost, no matter how such a terrible thing occurs.

I'm not trying to downplay the significance of the suffering one would typically label as "deeper" or "more real", nor do I wish to make the claim that more common struggles like depression or feeling alone despite having enough to eat and a secure job are on par with the former types of suffering. Rather, I'm trying to get at the idea that the world doesn't stop for wars or for a marriage in shambles. Not for a country under the iron fist of a dictator, or a teenager with an eating disorder. Just as we can get caught up in the vast amount of unfathomable problems running rampant across the globe and forget to take care of ourselves, it can oftentimes be just as easy to get wrapped up in our own personal struggles and forget that life presses onward outside. Both scenarios tend to leave us feeling unhealthily guilty, whether for forgetting those around us have their own struggles too or for being so focused on the big picture that we have let ourselves fall apart, which does nothing to help anyone.

Whenever I feel like I'm spiraling down into the dark depths of my own mind, miserably on my way to attend yet another pity party, I tell myself to suck it up and think about all those out there who have it worse. The thing is, while this might be true, it doesn't mean whatsoever that my own perceived suffering isn't valid; telling yourself that, is like denying your right to feel. Everybody has been dealt their own share of hardships and crappy hands, and its okay to be upset about it, just as long as you don't become your suffering.

So what is the right answer to that first question? Which horrible situation do you choose? From what I've learned about life so far, there is no right answer, and there shouldn't ever have to be one.