suf·fer·ing /ˈsəf(ə)riNG/ (noun)
1. the state of undergoing pain, distress, or hardship.
You will die. You will get sick. You will become hungry.
You can try to prevent or postpone as much of your suffering as possible. Try to eat a little healthier, stay a little more fit, don’t die young. But no matter how fit you are, old age comes to us all. Your body will begin to wear out. You can take your vitamins to keep your immune system strong, and your medicine when you’re not feeling well. But even then, you can get sick.
There are lots of ways to suffer:
- When you’re a kid, maybe the other kids smack you around a little bit, or they laugh at the answer you told in class.
- We face mortality, and the loss of relationships can be painful. Your parents are likely to die before you do. Close friends and family may die.
- A girlfriend or boyfriend may dump you. You may be cheated on. You may ask someone out and be rejected.
- Your boss may fire you.
- You can get in a car accident or have a freak accident.
- You could be born with a condition that causes you pain.
- You can become depressed. This may not turn out like you think they should. You may judge yourself for things you think you shouldn’t have done.
- You’re going to have to sweat to stay in shape.
- You’re going to have to do things that you don’t want to do but have to do.
It took no effort at all to make this list of ways you can suffer, and I’m just getting warmed up. Here’s the point: You are going to suffer. Some of the suffering might be minor and some of it may be major.
Suffering is real. Suffering is fear.
All suffering is real to the person experiencing it though. Even if you feel like, “Man, my life isn’t that bad. I don’t have any right to complain or feel like this.” That’s not true. All suffering is real. You may be right that your suffering isn’t comparatively as severe as other people, but you should consider that a blessing. That means it will be comparatively easier for you to reduce your suffering. It also means that you should be caring and compassionate to other people because you realize that you could be in their shoes. Remember, circumstances have a way of changing people’s fortunes with a drop of a feather.
When you take a moment to really psychoanalyze what suffering is, it’s fear. For example, if someone laughs at you when you give an answer at school or peers in a conference room snicker when you speak during a presentation, how does that make you feel? To some people, it makes them mortified. They don’t want to put themselves out there (speak) in front of those people because they don’t want to experience the feelings of criticism, which can then lead to shame if the person doesn’t regulate it well. And to be clear, most people including myself don’t regulate it as well as we should.
Why does it matter if people around you die? Of course it will make you sad, and you want the joy of that person’s life in your life. But you know mortality is a natural state of being. You know people die, and it’s not just of old age. What you fear is losing someone. What you fear is how your life will be when that event happens.
Your amygdala forms the starting point for your fear response. It’s connected with other systems in your brain to determine what situations should cause you fear. You started categorizing these situations from the time your brain was formed. When you started, you had the contextual understanding and processing power of a three year old, yet a few of those memories started to form the basis of your reality, your experience in life. You hold onto those memories, filter all later experiences through that context, and form new memories. I sure hope three year old you was wise; otherwise, you may have made some bad processing decisions.
Embrace the Suck
I believe that it is a worthy goal for all people to reduce unnecessary suffering and use necessary suffering to become stronger.
Some suffering you just can’t avoid. People will die, the unexpected will happen. We live in a world full of imperfect humans who act emotionally, irrationally, and sometimes unpredictably. When something happens that you dislike – that causes you pain, distress, or hardship – you literally have two choices, and that’s it: Deny it or accept it. Most of the time, you don’t make this choice consciously. That’s part of the trick – learning to make this choice consciously so that you can train your mind to make this the default state.
You can’t reduce all suffering, and in fact, you should not reduce all suffering. Some of the suck has to be embraced. Some of the suffering is necessary. For example, you want to get stronger cardiovascular fitness, you better bust your butt to get those gains. You’re going to sweat and suffer. But in the end, you will be stronger. By making yourself get off the couch and work out when you do not want to, you’re training your mind that your intentional consciousness is stronger than your nonconsciousness. You’re training your body that your mind is the master, not your impulses and desires. This is critical training. You can achieve that training in other facets of life, but for most people, this is readily-available area of their life to build discipline.
When you have made yourself strong, when you have trained your conscious mind to master your nonconscious mind and body, then when you get the phone call that something tragic and unexpected happened, you don’t have to go into flight, fight, fawn, and freeze mode. You can act with intentionality, with control, with character because you’ve trained your mind in other areas. You’ve visualized scenarios. You’ve planned. You knew this was a possibility. You can be strong when others are panicked.
Discipline your mind and body to be ready. Accept what you cannot change.
Be strong.