I once sat next to someone in Manchester airport who was also flying to the same country....county.... street.... next door! More that that my relatives owed the neighbouring bungalow and ran it as a B&B.
We wildly misunderstand and underestimate probability as humans.
As for the comments I have literally has the exact ones said to me. On finding out I had completed a degree and was in a profession, one ex elder insisted on telling me how well all my relatives were doing in the KH, like it was a competition. I just thought of all the wasted hours, days, weeks, months, years they lost and continue to lose.