Nov 18, 2020
Suffering — It’s good for you
When I was younger I clearly remember worrying about what others thought of me. I was suffering because of my own internal fears. Ironically, the suffering I was experiencing was all self-inflicted.
I have since outgrown that mindset, but I still needlessly cause myself to suffer. I worry about my future, I get frustrated when something doesn’t go to plan, and when I decided to take a break from work, I suffer because I feel like I’m not being productive like I should.
These are all absurd thoughts that go on inside my head. I have since reflected on why these thoughts happen and how I can combat them.
Turning a cold shoulder to your dark side
My battle with private suffering was obvious. I was able to see myself from the third perspective. This is the first thing I did to stop my suffering:
View yourself from the third perspective.
Viewing yourself from the third perspective can be easy. Try it right now. View yourself as if you were an omniscient entity seeing all your thoughts and actions through a logical and sensible filter.
What do you see? Do you like it? Is that person sitting at the computer reading a Medium article suffering unnecessarily?
Don’t You Worry About a Thing
Everything little thing is going to be alright. Bob Marley was right, little things are alright.
Big picture problems are something that is out of your control. For instance, I want to eventually create my own successful business. However, worrying about big picture problems in the present is what has caused me to procrastinate and to needlessly suffer.
I’ve decided to focus on what is in front of me. I enjoy doing things in the present as they are, over analyzing your current actions and their effect on future outcomes is what causes you to suffer and procrastinate. In my experience, procrastinating on something you want to achieve is a form of suffering.
Procrastination is suffering.
What I do now, is learn in the present. I focus on designing a website for my business rather than thinking about its possible global success, which may or may not happen. I don’t procrastinate on things now, I simply do what I want to do when I have free time.
Feeling unproductive and lazy has also caused me to suffer. I’ve since learned that you should enjoy those moments of not working while you can because they are far and few between as you get older.
Why is suffering good for you?
Suffering is good because it makes us realize what the good times are. Suffering is what it means to be human. Suffering sets a parallel for contentment, pleasure, and happiness. Without suffering we wouldn’t be human, we would be consistently “happy” robots. Suffering is what gives us the motivation to make a better future and to do things.
Without suffering I wouldn’t be introspective about myself and others. There would be no need to do anything if everything was perfect. Suffering is what makes life interesting. Constant pleasure gets old, doesn’t it? Hard things make us tough.
It makes us ready for the next challenge.
