Hello my Zebras and Spoonies! Thanks for coming and hanging out with me today, I’m glad that you are here. Today I want to talk about the strange idea that suffering builds character and makes us better people. Because in my experience that has not been the case.
I’m not sure where this idea comes from or why people so readily throw it around, but I want to break it. This is a lie. Suffering does not make us better people in any way. It is true that there is no way to avoid suffering in our lives. No matter what choices we make, we will experience various degrees of suffering. It is part of the human experience. But to hold that up as the thing that someone creates amazing people is simply false. No one reaches their full potential while they are in the midst of great suffering. I will refer you to Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs as to why this is the case.
The truth is that the people that are doing their best and who are reaching their fullest potential are those people that are being protected and sheltered from suffering. They are also being assisted and supported when they are suffering. That’s what the truth is. Let’s let go of this idea that we forge noble hearts in the fire of suffering. It serves us no purpose. It is nothing more then a strange justification for failing to meet people’s needs.
When we think back through our lives and consider the things that make us stronger, we are going to discover that it is the connections that we have with other people, the feelings of love that we hold in our hearts, the gestures of kindness that we’ve experienced. It is all those moments of love and light and brightness in our lives that keep us moving forward. Suffering leads to stagnation and in the worse cases to suicide. People never commit suicides because they felt too loved or because they were given too much food or because they had too much pleasure. They commit suicide because they feel isolated, they feel uncontrolled pain and they are starving. People commit suicide when they are suffering and they feel that death is the only way to make that suffering to stop. How then, can we consider this state of being as a means to create greatness?
Well, that’s about it for my rambling today. Thanks for coming and spending some time with me. If you like what you read, click on that like button. It really does help! Until we talk again, you take care of yourselves!
Zebra Pig 