Things close to home.

How true, annsixty.

In your case, realization came with the breakup of your S's marriage, while my case, it took the loss of my dad (and the time leading up to it, knowing what was creeping, then sprinting, onwards us) to truly know how awful it is to lose a dearly-loved parent. Until then, as you said in your OP, "when I heard of it in other people's lives, I would say oh, how sad and that was it.I didn't consider how awful it was for wider family."

Exactly Monica in fact a friend of ours who has recently retired from his job as a GP told us that he saw many, many older (usually women )who are depressed by thoughts of tragic events both here and around the world, awful wars, accidents, cruelty and neglect and crushing poverty in some countries.They were almost sleepless as a result, and downcast during the day.
He asked them if they had worried like this in their forties and even fifties, and most said no, it was in retirement.
In other words, it was a mix of more time on their hands,
AC left home and maybe moved away and a sense of the clock ticking and impending doom.
We cannot and should not dwell on the ills of the world.
You are right Annsixty we can think about those affected,
But not so much that it affects our well being.
News comes at us all the time now, in a way that it didn’t 30 years ago, and IMHO has a detrimental affect quite often.
There are things we can do ( support a charity which helps the homeless ) or a charity which helps anything that bothers us anywhere in the world, it’s the fruitless worrying that is bad for us.

I think too often media coverage is always for those 'cheating' the system and the media (and others) forget that is only news because it is so rare.

I think most families have experience of many of life's problems: redundancy and severe road accidents seem to be a recurring motif in our family's lives.

But somehow when we have to widen it out to others we feel it less. I suppose that is essential or we would be crushed by the misery of other people's lives and be unable to see all that is good in life; the response of ordinary people to those that suffered in the Grenfell Tower fire, the generosity of many people when there is some natural disaster.

I think the saying about walking a mile in someone else's shoes has never been truer.We see reports of homeless,of benefits "cheats" of people using foodbanks and rarely do we think that COULD be me and I shouldn't be harsh in judgement of folk who have fallen on hard times.Sadly people struggling is more and more common as is the (usually) online abuse they receive .Maybe we dont need to take the worlds worries on our shoulders just be grateful that its not us or our families who find themselves in awful situations and help where we can .

ann - as you say, we can't take the worries of the world on our shoulders. I have felt very sorry recently for the small businesses folding due to the Carillion disaster. How horrible for the owners to have to make their loyal workers redundant through no fault of their own. I also have to turn away sometimes from the small refugee children we are shown on TV. Their eyes reflect all the horror they have seen and should not have seen.