I've been trying to decide whether it's good or bad that one cannot fully appreciate what others are going through in life, either their joys or their sorrows, until one has experienced them oneself.  It's probably more on the bad side, if we are not as sensitive either to people's joy or pain, leaving them feeling lonely, either in need of more compassion or celebration than is being offered.  On the other hand, one could probably make a case for it being a good thing, because to appreciate fully and to take in all the world's despair and horror and grief and disappointment fully, as though it were one's own, would do one in. By the same token, to absorb fully all the world's joy might be a sensory overload and short out all of a person's nerve endings and brain parts! 

But however you …