“Technology? Drugs? Money? Materials? Worldly appearance? Power? Feeling good?

These are all certainly monstrous addictions plaguing our societies today. But is there a deeper level to each of them?

I believe, yes. There is an umbrella covering each of these facets of our societal addictions…. and that umbrella is an addiction to… SUFFERING. Hear me out:

I suffered today because a girl from a dating app didn’t text me after saying she would. I suffered for hours, and still feel a twinge of suffering – almost a full day later. Never mind the million things to be inexplicably grateful for – I would rather choose to focus on suffering. But why?????

Since each of our infancies, we have been cultivating an addiction to suffering. Why? Because it is easy. It is familiar. It is constant. It is predictable. It is not ‘suffering’ inherently, however. Ultimately, what we are cultivating from infancy is a delusional sense of self that exists ‘separately’ from the world outside our bodies.

This notion is a complete confabulation, yet it gets drilled into our identity. Now, what happens is that this fundamentally mistaken view of the world naturally branches off into every facet of our lives. We feel separate from the world, and thus, we act selfishly. We do so in order to protect ourselves from perceived ‘threats’. There is an underlying ‘dis-ease’, anxiety, and disequilibrium within each of us – the voice of the ‘true self’ speaking through the facade, saying “Look deeper! Break free!”

We must decipher between “liking suffering” and “choosing suffering because it is familiar.” For the vast majority of us, the case is the latter. We choose suffering over and over again – why? Because it is the most familiar thing in the world to us. We know it back and front, head to toe.

When we attempt to solve any other addiction, I believe we are only putting a band-aid on a deeper wound. We are simply doomed to liberate ourselves completely until we liberate ourselves from our primary addiction to suffering.

I could go on forever talking about this – but to conclude: Everyone has the ability to break free from the chains of suffering. It is simply the effect of a delusional view of reality. The moment we see things for how they are, our suffering will cease. When we habituate this new view, the suffering will never see the light of day. It really is that simple.”