Problems are relative. Many people, and college students are among the worst, often complain that their troubles are insurmountable, unbearable.

Several feel they are a victim or have been somehow wronged by society. But are your problems, your concerns, really life or death situations or merely inconveniences?

No matter how heavy your load, there’s always someone who is more troubled than you. It’s a humbling experience to talk with that person.

Last Friday the Daily ran a front-page account of Thomas Hargrove’s year-long captivity in Colombia. Hargrove, an Iowa State alumnus, was kidnapped by a Marxist Guerrilla group and detained in Colombia’s northern Andes Mountains.

While he was held, often caged in a tiny cell or chained to a post, Hargrove became so malnourished that his hair turned orange.

He lost all communication with his family and loved ones. He witnessed a presumably insane man blow his head off with an automatic rifle and he was left with only his thoughts to keep him occupied for days at a time.

For a year, Thomas Hargrove lived in hell, while, he said, his family went through nearly the same fate not knowing if he was alive.

Hargrove wasn’t worried about having to go to class, about not having enough money to go to the bar, about his parents making him come home for a visit or even about the inconveniences of road construction. His concerns were a little more essential, such as how his family would handle seeing his body dumped on their driveway, a common practice for his captors.

Thomas Hargrove had real problems. Do you?