The Meaning We Give To Suffering: Counter Perspective

Imagine looking at a whiteboard that is plain as white, clean, and sufficiently blank. A person walks into the room, takes the marker in their hand, and marks a black dot on the board on the bottom right.

Now, you don’t only see the whiteboard, your eyes are looking at the black dot. You want to rub it off because it somehow manages to catch your eye every time you look at the whiteboard.

The madness presented by this whiteboard highlights how people often fixate on this single black dot, ignoring the vast expanse of white space around it. It’s akin to letting one small issue overshadow all the good things in life.

What is your approach to suffering?

Suffering has the same approach as that of the black dot on a whiteboard. It is the meaning we give to it. As we’re told suffering is a part of life, we’re constantly bombarded by its after-effects. The memories of the past, the cooking up of thoughts about things that never actually happened, and retaining the feeling of pain only because we don’t know how to let go.

How do we come out on the other side of suffering? What kind of a person does one become after they have suffered?

“The seed of suffering in you may be strong, but don’t wait until you have no more suffering before allowing yourself to be happy.”

~Buddha

Imagine two people, both experiencing the same kind of suffering. Both of them have experienced immense levels of poverty. A few years later, one of them gets a decent job and the other becomes a thief.

Can the person’s success in landing a job be attributed to the suffering he experienced from poverty? Alternatively, can the other person’s decision to become a thief be the cause of his suffering in poverty?

We often blame money for corrupting the mind but isn’t it up to us to choose whether we wish to use or abuse the power of money?

Diverse Meanings Attributed to Suffering

Jordan: “Look Matt, now, I know you really don’t want to hear this, but, none of us thought you would’ve done the job you did.”

Matt: “Hmm”

Jordan: “We thought you didn’t have a chance of taking care of this little girl by yourself. Honestly, you did a way better job than any of us thought you would do, man. You should be proud of yourself, man. You did that.”

Matt: “I mean, she didn’t die, right? I mean I fed her.”

Jordan: “Yeah”

Matt: “Put pampers on her, gave her some clothes. Yeah, that’s a good job. I mean, what I did, you have to say, it was probably the bare minimum of parenting. That should be enough, right?”

Jordan: “I think you’re being hard on yourself. I didn’t mean it like that.”

Matt: “No, I’m not being hard on myself. Nobody thought that I could raise my child. So, why did I? What am I doing? What decision am I making, and who is the decision best for? Because I don’t know.”

Matt was once a happily married man with a wife he loved very much. The movie called Fatherhood had some deep and realistic insights to share when it came to single parenting for a father. Matt loses his wife to a complication that arises shortly after she gives birth to their newborn baby. The pain of losing his wife and also leaving him with a daughter to raise was a journey he was not prepared to take alone. Yet, he had to…

A few years had passed by and he was doing the best he could with managing his job, taking care of his daughter, and trying to raise her with the ideals his wife would have wanted. But somewhere deep inside he suffered with the guilt and pain of losing the woman he loved, too soon and too sudden.

Every day, he struggled to give meaning to what he was doing. Every day, he wondered whether he was doing the right thing.

Matt was reacting to his experiences, and much of it, he attributed to suffering. With time, he realized that he could take each step towards being a good father, one day at a time.

“Suffering in and of itself is meaningless; we give our suffering meaning by the way in which we respond to it.”

~ Viktor E. Frankl

The 3-Edged Sword of Suffering

Suffering is a three-edged sword that compels us to make a decision but the path we take depends on us. We either grow out of suffering eventually and mentally; act bitterly because of it; or become a bit of both. Our efforts to grow through most of the pain and the sorrow depend on our level of spirituality – Spiritual Quotient (SiQ).

When you improve your SiQ, you can enhance your ground of neutrality and assess the kind of meaning you give to suffering. You could ask yourself, how you want to come out on the other side of suffering.

But if you do not improve your level of spirituality, you could end up giving your suffering a meaning that is darker and unrealistic. Work on your SiQ levels if you hear yourself say the following:

·       I will never get over this

·       What has my life become?

·       I am not strong enough to handle this

·       This is how it’s going to be for the rest of my life

·       I just don’t care anymore

·       I can’t stop crying about what happened

·       I am so angry, I want to scream

·       I am scared, I don’t know what to do

·       Nobody understands me, I feel so lonely

We must remember that when it comes to suffering, let us try and ask the WINNER question. Are you Willing to Invest Now or Not to Engage and Respond to your agony of suffering?

Given that suffering is not something you just take upon yourself. There can be various factors contributing to what you feel. So, how much of your time, energy, and effort are you going to invest?

Your suffering exists and it may get created in different forms but the meaning you give to it and what you do with it is up to you.

Taking a few words from this wonderful song by Jacob Banks – Slow Up

What I’ve learnt from the ocean

How to dance and rejoice in the motion

Let the sun have its moment

The moon will come

What I’ve learnt from a traveller

There’s no road that can lead to Nirvana

There’s a world to discover

But home is love

What I’ve learnt from a mirror

Look too hard and you’ll find you a stranger

Love is just a decision

The choice is yours