The older we get the more we get to know what suffering means.
Around the world there are thousands of families which are too poor to provide food for their children or unable to guarantee them security because they’re located in the middle of a political war zone. Facing the presence of death and loss in their daily life. Struggling for survival.
However, most of the people who will read this article might be fortunate enough to exist in a much more protected environment. With enough food on the table and the fundamental implicitness of having a home and education.
Even though we can classify ourselves as comparably blessed, we suffer. Some of us earlier, some of us later. The interesting thing about suffering is, that no matter how aware we are about the fact that we are blessed compared to a huge amount of the population, our minds keep focusing on the as negative perceived factors. We’re in a constant search of something better or different because our mind keeps telling us that we don’t own enough, or we aren’t enough as a person. So we keep longing for something which satisfies us, which makes our future presence better or makes us whole. This might be aspired through material objects, compliments or the estimation of your boss. And even if we achieve those aspired things, the mind discovers repeatedly wrong circumstances in life. Even if there are numerous amazing things, it keeps on focusing on the self-proclaimed negative facts. By letting our mind clinging to that, we suffer. Sometimes we suffer so much that human existence seems unbearable, people even commit suicide because of issues which seem trivial for people who must fight for survival in everyday live.
The problem about suffering is not only your bad mood. Much worse is the fact that you decide to miss out moments of your live. With each and every moment of suffering we waste a moment of presence, a moment of joy. Even more frustrating is the fact that we have to blame ourselves for destroying these moments. We are the ones who decide to suffer. Most people probably feel offended by reading these words. But it is true: IF YOU SUFFER YOU CHOOSED TO SUFFER.
Even if this fact doesn’t sound nice, it is accompanied by a positive side effect: If you’re in control of suffering you are also able to stop it. How to do so? By taking responsibility for yourself and by giving up self-pity and complaining.
As soon as you’ll take responsibility for yourself, you stop your repetitive thought by taking your problems to task. That means you have exactly two options. First option is, you have the power to change something. When you have the power to change something, and you WANT to stop misery, you must act. However, there are also a lot of burdensome circumstances, mostly related to beloved people, that we are not in control of. I had to learn very early in life that we are powerless in the face of most obstacles, no matter how much energy we’re willing to invest.
So, regarding those circumstances we are not in control of, how can we influence our suffering? In that case there is only one thing we can do: SURRENDER. In order to stop suffering we must surrender ourselves to whatever is playing the cards. Those unchangeable circumstances don’t care about how much time we spend thinking about them. In that case worrying and thinking won’t change anything. So, what will you choose? Complaining and making your own feelings miserable, likewise wasting all your presence to unchangeable things? Or will you go out and take responsibility? Will you take responsibility for yourself to gain a live without-good-for-nothing suffering, full of presence and awareness?
That doesn’t mean bad emotions do not exist anymore. Emotions are part of ourselves. That is the point: They are a PART of us. They are not us. Picture them as waves of the ocean — coming and going. Sometimes without even knowing where these waves are coming from. Recognize them but let them go. Suffering however is clinging to emotions and thoughts.
Some people might not feel ready yet to give up their suffering, as they identify themselves through them. People mostly start realizing how to give up the self-constructed torture as soon as circumstances make them suffer so deeply, that they just can’t stand it anymore. They have to surrender in order to survive.
Consequently, it is your decision if you want to wait until you reach such a point of suffering or if you want to take responsibility now already. The second option would spare you a lot of sleepless nights and the loss of present moments. Either way, it is indispensable that we have to deal with misery as human beings. It forces us to move, to find light. How else would a flower come out of the cozy mud in order to bloom? Suffering pushes us to think out of our old thinkig habits and forces us to grow.
SO WELCOME YOUR PROBLEMS IN LIFE. THEY ARE MADE FOR YOU TO EITHER FIND SOLUTIONS OR TO LEARN HOW TO SURRENDER YOURSELF, IN ORDER TO BECOME MORE AWARE AND GRATEFUL FOR EVERY SINGLE BREATH WHICH IS GIFTED TO YOU.
