The World Is Full Of Suffering: It Is Also Full Of Overcoming It
What’s the worst that could happen to your career (if you have one)?
What’s the worst that could happen in your relationship or marriage of several years?
My guess is you’ve more than often avoided this line of thought. And maybe for good reasons such as preventing anxiety. (I recently posted about toxic habits that hook us to the anxiety-depression loop)
It is not every day that we have the courage to face our fears in life. Most times we are cowards who choose to burrow our heads in the sand.
Other times we have no option but, in the words of Janie Chouinard, face it, wake up and smell that shit.
Attachment is a limitation
We can learn something from the story of Jesus getting tempted by the devil after 40 days of fasting in the desert. He was promised power and riches if he compromised his relationship with God. Unfortunately for the devil, Jesus had transcended earthly suffering and wasn’t in the pursuit of a life without problems.
The lesson, I guess, is that attachment to things is a source of limitation.
A limitation that, not only blinds us from seeing the bigger picture but also enslaves us.
It is a limitation that if we overcome we are liberated from the cycle of events in our lives we see as “ one problem after another”.
Suppose the test Jesus had was available to men and women of today.
Most of us would choose to be filthy rich — barely because we want to live lavishly and mostly because we want to feel secured from uncertainties of life.
We dread problems and suffering so much that, if given a chance, would auction our souls to live in a world without them.
This is why we inherently think that amassing all property we can lay our hands can keep suffering at bay.
It is also why rich people are like painkillers and regular people would sacrifice a foot to have one closely as a friend, family, or life partner.
Avoiding suffering
Is avoiding suffering our ultimate goal in life?
Are we individually considered failures when we fail to overcome the sufferings that befall us?
That seems to be the case especially in this era of capitalism.
Isn’t it always the lady/man that marries into a rich family that people say married well?
Because getting involved in a materially-rich social circle equals reduced suffering in a world that cannot see beyond carnality.
Yet suffering is inevitable, isn’t it?
Finding The Cure For Suffering
Despite the big achievements of humanity like building complex space exploration machines and surgery of the most complicated organ — the brain, we haven’t still figured how to live a clean-cut life without problems.
It, therefore, must be that suffering is a necessary part of our living.
An article on Exploring Your Mind website says that although we have failed at finding the magic pill for suffering, there is a new wave of a social mandate that forces us to be happy above everything else. A new culture that encourages projecting “positivity” wherever you go or whoever you are with.
The article says that happiness is now being forced down our throats even when we want to drool over the frustrations of work and family. And, although intentions of such concepts are good, some people often get caught in a “happiness trap”.
Simply put, the happiness trap is a false sense of happiness. The trapped person pretends to be happy but in reality, they are depressed and hurting inside. Ironically, one major cause of the happiness trap is trying to find happiness. The assumption that happiness is somewhere out there to be found in things, people, or places — when in real sense happiness starts right here.
The social mandate ideology can also explain why we seek new-age wellness practices such as meditation, yoga, and life coaching now more than ever.
We now realize that what we need in life is a receptive attitude towards problems because we cannot avoid them completely.
We also realize that suffering has no cure and avoiding suffering is neither the best way to live.
Fear and uncertainty about what could go wrong in Life
Suppose your high school sweetheart and fiancee-to-be gets disinterested after 8 years of relationship. Its a relationship you’ve toiled, sweat and blood, to build — hoping, in the end, it would blossom into something beautiful. But as fate would have it, that dream is now bleak. You are constantly in an out battles with a cold and untrustworthy partner who, all of a sudden, is unsure if they want to spend time with you.
I’m curious to know.
Will you respect yourself and walk out of this relationship?
Will you curl in and try to fix things because you don’t want to shoot yourself in the foot?
Maybe if you walk out of this relationship you will never find someone attracted to you. The charming looks you had when you first met your partner have since faded off.
Does the fear of being alone and not finding love again drive you insane?
In this life nothing is impossible and it might come to that. The things we least expect sometimes come to pass.
But so what even if they do come true?
Kristi Johnson says in one of her articles that its a waste of time waiting for someone to come into your life for you to be happy.
I couldn’t agree more.
Uncertainty and motivation
Suppose before you committed to your current relationship you had the revelation that it won’t work out. Do you think you would’ve had all the good experiences you’ve had so far? Chances are you would have not entered it in the first place. And even if you did, you would have not channeled a lot of your energy into it.
Therefore, uncertainty is the motivation that makes you and your partner put in work.
Studies have also shown that uncertainty is a good motivator.
In an experiment, participants of two groups were asked to drink a specified amount of water in two minutes. Subjects in the first group were guaranteed $2 each time they completed the task while those in the second group were told they would get $1 or $2 reward (to be determined by coin toss) if they accomplished the same. Outcomes showed that over the experiment period, the group with guaranteed rewards completed the task 43% of the time while participants in the uncertain group completed 70% of the time.
This implies that the uncertainty of whether you will or will not get that big promotion at work could be what is motivating you to put in your best effort all the time.
Scholars studying this phenomenon also found that uncertainty generates motivation and other pleasant experiences only when participants focused on the process of pursuing the reward and barely when they focused on the final reward.
Which reveals another important point that; focusing on enjoying the relationship or work available to you now has better benefits than dwelling on its future uncertainties or expectations you want it to fulfill. “The worst insult we can give those who have less is to take our positions for granted,” Abraham Gordon says.
So, it seems that transcending the uncertainties and fears holding you back in life is the best way to have a quality life after all.
“The certainty of misery is better than the misery of uncertainty”.
Taking control of your life
Taking control means defeating the uncertainties and fears that run your life.
It means courageously facing, turning-inside out, disemboweling, and rendering your uncertainties or fears powerless.
In doing so you earn back your lost freedom.
You also get a better shot at happiness.
Victory is when you take that battle and come out of the other side ravished but resilient enough for adversities of life.
I have written about overcoming the fear of death for anyone whose fears revolve around death.
Having the right attitude to overcome fear, uncertainty, and suffering
Maybe to reach the destiny you desperately seek in life you must gather courage and successfully walk through this dark corridor of uncertainty and fear. Transcending all the pain and suffering it harbors.
And you must transgress it with minimal resistance.
Only after you become nonjudgmental and resilient to this pain shall you earn the freedom you so much wished for.
Assuming you have abandonment issues. Maybe you must face the fear of being abandoned head-on, get abandoned a couple of times, and reach that level where you are no longer terrified of abandonment. Only then will you start having secure relationships in your life.
Whenever you are scared to tackle your fear head-on, armor yourself with the “So what” attitude and it will get you through.
In the worst case ;
You might lose the job that means a lot to you …so what?
You might stay single for the good part of your life (scares me too sometimes) …so what?
So what if you never become rich in life?
There is a lot more out there that can enrich your life.
Closing with these words from Nea Marina | Taking on Life Together
“Worrying takes time off of your life and because you don’t know what tomorrow even holds, allow yourself to be in the moment now because there is enough that goes on in one day, you don’t need to worry about tomorrow, so learn how to make more room for optimism and less room for the enemy, which is worry.”
