You might find the Locus of control concept interesting explains that some people just have more or less a tendency to view themselves as having control . Maybe it ' ll help you get a better sense of why some people appear so unable to change their behaviors andor so unwilling to listen to someone who suggests they can it ' s sometimes partly because they genuinely don ' t believe they do have control by their perceptive , which is different than yours . It can be affected by experiences and it ' s not a completely fixed part of a person , but people can definitely feel relatively helpless or powerful depending , and sometimes unrealistically so . Again , it doesn ' t explain everything neatly enough to clearly figure out who isisn ' t deserving of sympathy , but it ' s a factor to consider at least . Some people can fall into a sense of helplessness due to past eventsespecially family life they didn ' t have control over as well .