The outcome is often the loudest part of a much quieter story.

What you can see of any situation is the noisy end of it. The outcome arrives with volume and consequence, while the long quiet part that produced it involved no drama and no audience. Judging only from the loud part means you consistently misread how things came to be.

With someone else’s visible failure or visible success, assume there is a long quiet story you do not have. Ask about it if you can. It usually makes you both more accurate and more generous.