I think it is just a case of it's-always-greener-on-the-other-side-of-the-fence.

We can't know what it is like to be someone else or have someone else's problems; we can only know what we, personally, think and feel about those people and problems from our point of view.

I remember being afraid of being ill and in the hospital and having an operation, etc. until it happened to me and it was, of course, not anything at all like I imagined. We are always so shocked and horrified by grisly accidents or deaths or other misfortunes but that's from the viewer's point of view, not the person experiencing them. Being in a lot of pain is very hard but my experience of extreme pain was that I was dealing with the pain, not thinking about dealing with the pain and how hard it would be!