Suffering

Is the glass half full, or half empty?

If life is like a saw blade, with its high points and valleys, you can view it in basically two ways:

1. You can think that the high points are the goal, and then feel pain and suffering in the valleys. Every time you experience the decent, you can focus on it and see it as a terrible, painful, unfair experience. The only time you are happy is at the high points. 

OR 

2. You can see life as normally being a struggle, and the valleys are a normal condition. Then when a point comes along, you experience it as a wonderful joyful moment. Even a dull bent point on the saw is still so much nicer than the valleys. And, as long as you realize that the valley (pain) is normal, you can experience pleasure in the up and the down of the saw blade. Occasionally, you might find a valley that is deeper than you experienced before. That might be a surprise, but it only means that you never really understood how much pain occurs in this world. The only time you are sad is at the bottom of the valleys. This is how people in poor countries can still be happy. This is how the slaves survived in America. They recognized that life is hard and it is filled with much pain. 

In this way, you can experience life in a different way, with pain, but without all the suffering. When you know that pain is normal, you don’t have to blame someone else for bringing it to you. The world is an imperfect place, so life will always have much unhappiness and pain. When you realize that, then you will feel greater happiness and joy when you escape some of the pain. You appreciate every moment you are not in pain (see Things to Appreciate).

My saying these things will not automatically make your suffering go away. My writing this will not instantly change you. This is being written so that you can realize that there is another way to see and experience the world. This other way still has all the pain, but does not have all the suffering, which feeds and magnifies the pain. Basically, all that is required is to recognize that life is a struggle, and to accept pain as a normal part of life. Basically, all you have to do is see the glass is half full.