This feeling comes from a part of you that wants to feel special, even through suffering. There is a tendency to feel like you are the only victimized person, and that gives a strange kind of self-validation.
But everyone will be pushed to their own limit, and everyone experiences suffering. Your ouch is your threshold, and others have theirs.
The problem is not that your life is especially unfair, but that you are only looking at your pain and not the full picture. When you start to see both, including what you have received, this feeling begins to lose its hold.
From the Mahabharata
Karna got stuck in this pattern. He felt that his life had only been about sorrow and suffering, and he held on to that identity. But it was not the full truth.
He had also received a lot. He was given a kingdom, had people who loved him, and achieved many things he wanted. By focusing only on his wound, he kept reinforcing the idea that his life was uniquely tragic.
This reflection draws from Swamini Supriyananda’s Mahabharata teachings at Chinmaya Mission Hong Kong.
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