We all have grown up in different environments. Different cultures and parenting styles. These sort of environments that you have grown up in shape your opinions and the way you see life as a whole.

Some people see an enormous fantasy book and think about how boring and dreadful it would be if it was assigned to them. Others think that it holds a great story and don’t mind the length. This changes based on how you were taught and what you learned was good and bad. What if I told you that literal spilled milk in the eyes of a privileged American citizen is the same as spilled blood in the eyes of a child living in deep poverty in a third world country.

Our brains are created to adapt to our surroundings and act accordingly. What is “bad” purely depends on what you’ve seen. Someone who has only been exposed to poverty and war is satisfied when peace and/or financial stability occurs and views that as a dream. Someone who would go to MVHS on the other hand, may have a mental breakdown if they lose 3-5 friends that they will most likely regain or replace in the next couple weeks. What this causes is a section of trauma that the brain creates to adhere to our needs. This often means that if someone who has experienced immense trauma who has gone a life experiencing minor incidents will be affected much more than when someone who has already gone through multiple different incidents close to this amount of intense severity. Whenever someone goes through something small like losing a phone or friend you must take into account that this could be the “worst situation” in their brain due to low exposure. There is a common phrase when someone goes through something small “think about the children in third world countries”. This does work with some people as their trauma is technically less, but their brain receives it the same as someone who has received constant trauma.

Ignoring these factors can in fact result to suicide. People in third world countries optimize survival as one of their main factors not happiness like most other species. Suicide can occur but isn’t as often as it is in the upper class. A theory could be that these people are actually being helped and their trauma is being acknowledged. When it comes to the more privileged in richer areas, they have higher suicide rates. This is because we ignore their traumas. The traumas that in their mind are life-ending as they utilize happiness over survival. Typically their mindset won’t change so we must tend to their needs just as we would tend to someone who has dealt with loss. It is heartless to shrug off problems that seem unimportant to us, we don’t know how privileged the other person is. Always know that no matter what the luggage a problem is, it is important that we care for others and help them in any way they need.