“Just the word brings up images of death, despair and agony. It may remind us of the worst times we’ve experienced in life: loved ones we’ve lost, relationships that broke up despite all our best hopes, feelings of loneliness and deep depression. As soon as we’re old enough to know the first hints of suffering from hunger and cold to jealousy or abandonment most of us start seeking the quickest possible antidotes to that suffering. Our physiological and instinctive reaction to pain and suffering is to escape it. When you touch a hot stove your hand will be pulled back before you even consciously realize it. But facing suffering in our conscious mind can be even harder. That’s because we want to either get rid of the suffering or make sense of it and sometimes neither of these options is possible. That’s where facing and accepting suffering becomes the only option….”
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“I suffer because I think. It really can’t get much simpler than that. Now what do I mean by this? Well, I mean that I over analyze everything. For example, regardless of which worldview one adheres to, there really isn’t a good reason as to why the universe is, and by extension why we are. If you’re religious you can say that a creator did it for their own pleasure, and that we were created in our current form. If you’re non-religious, then you’d probably say that the universe was created by quantum fluctuations in an empty void, and through cosmological trial and error, got to us over a large span of time….”
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“I dare not make a generalization about others’ suffering, and shall thus speak only of my own experience. For years, I have asked myself the question: Why do I continue to choose suffering … EVEN while knowing that there exists another option. My conclusion, thus far, parallels my view of the basic structure of the Universe: It’s play. It’s exploration. Suffering, like any dark, deep place, can be explored, excavated, etc. I have settled on the idea that I am not yet done exploring this space, and will continue to do this work / play until the path of least resistance is to leave it….”
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“As a Rabbi, I’ve found that the most troubling spiritual question for most people is: “Why is life so difficult?” They want to understand why bad things happen — especially to good people — why things can’t always be easy and comfortable and why we suffer. This question of suffering — which theologians refer to as “theodicy” — has, since the emergence of human consciousness, prompted many different theories and possible answers. Below are three compelling ideas. Some may resonate for you and others may seem forced or flat, but all present a way to see life’s difficulties as mechanisms for growth….”
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