We humans mostly learn from the world around us, although there needs to be a balance between the inner and the outer world. That is why people meditate, spend time in a sensor deprivation tank, or shut out the world with a set of headphones and some inspiring music.
Nowadays it is easy to get carried away by mental constructs as the connected world floods our environment with many concepts, both real and imaginary. News media blow up the suffering to monstrous proportions, because bad news sells: it helps keep people living in fear, rather than seeing the events in their lives as a constant flow of lessons, neither good nor bad, but just aimed at giving you the chance of yet another choice to improve your life in the ways you think are most beneficial.
Mind you, that does not imply being selfish, or unfeeling. The most effective life is one of creation, and service to others. Nature shows us as much, in the ripples of a pond when it rains: The rain drops have no way of making things come to themselves, all ripples go outwards towards other ripples. Whatever ripples do arriva at where a drop falls, come from ripples creates by nearby drops. One unescapable fact remains though: as long as the rain lasts, the water level in the pond keeps going up!
Life is like that: give it your best, and it will give you even better! After all, you benefit from all the others that are making waves in the pond of humanity.