How Can We Avoid Suffering?

We do not like suffering.  Period.

Yet, we are fascinated with it.  Our literature, movies, poems, songs, current news reports, and personal stories focus on good times interrupted by bad times.  It is this tension that creates interest and draws us in.

While I was growing up, Hollywood churned out movies with happy endings - troubles resolved and good guys triumphed over the villain.  Then, things changed.  Suddenly, our story-telling shifted.  Troubles were left unresolved and our heroes were no longer charming.  There was no happily ever after.  In spite of this shift, rather than changing our internal mindset, most of us still secretly carry the expectation and desire for a happy ending to our story.  So, we tell ourselves that others may have tragic endings, but not us.  There is no place in our lives, our plans, our dreams for suffering with discord, financial troubles, sickness, disease, and death.

Contrary to our life-long experiences and the stories around us, most of us expect only good times.  When trouble appears at our door, we want to slam it shut.  "Keep away," we moan and turn our heads away.  Imagining that if we ignore it, the unwanted suffering will pass us by.  Maybe, we hope, it will descend onto the person next door.  After all, what did we do it deserve it?  But, to our horror, the smell of trouble begins to fill the room with an acrid, foul fog and settles in.

From that moment on, we try to get the pain out of our lives.  All our energy, time, and money are spent on solving the problem.  We want answers; we need answers.  "Please," we implore, "Take this away from me.  I don't want to suffer."  This is our deep truth.  We don't want to suffer.  So, we start to negotiate as if to barter our way out.  Reason is replaced with magical thinking: "If I do ________, then ______ will happen."  As if the universe and natural laws were at the whim of individual desire.  All of a sudden, God becomes a reality.  Well, more like a gift-giving, wish-granting genie.  At the moment of despair, people begin to pray, to beg for a miracle.

At some point, with sinking feelings, we begin to realize that we cannot wish or bargain the problem away.  Consequently, we start the second stage of magical thinking:  "Well, if I take charge, I can do something to shorten the suffering."  If the pain is borne out of a loved one's suffering, we may feel at a loss of what to do.  This despair takes hold of us and chokes our life to the point of fear.  We drink the bitter cup of anger.  We want to make things right.  The belief in the power of our abilities to heal ourselves is an opiate that we readily digest.

All of our problem-solving may make the situation more tolerable or less painful, but it is not a solution.  So, how can we avoid suffering?  We can't.  There is another path: flourish.

Seek a purpose, a vision, a new story that incorporates your suffering.  Even though you cannot see any good in what you are experiencing, your mindset to change the narrative will alter your character.  As you endure your suffering with patience, you will find the courage to hope.