This is a story that I read probably in the chandamama magazine but I have heard it many times
3 thieves had just stolen a lot of money and then went to their hiding place and went about dividing the loot among themselves. At some point in the night, one of the thieves by mistake put his finger in a crevice in the hideout and was bit by scorpion. As he experienced pain, he felt that since his friends had shared the good fortune of the booty with him, they should also share his pain, Instead of crying out loud, he started laughing and showing signs of joy and saying aha , aha , aha.
( My comment - god knows how he could think so fast and suppress his natural instinct for crying out loud ) His friends became curious and one of them also followed him by putting his finger in the crevice, he was also bit and he also repeated the actions of his predecessor by showing signs of ecstasy instead of pain. Thus the third and remaining companion also put his finger and got bit by the scorpion.
Chandamama summarized the moral of the story as following, good people only share their fortune with others while bad people share their fortune and sorrows alike.
I have a different take on this, I think there is a fundamental need for empathy among all of us and the only way you can truly empathize with the other's sorrows is if you have actually felt the same pain as the other as undergone. So sometimes if the person is really close to you, like a spouse or a sibling, maybe you would actually like the person to have walked in your shoes.
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