For a long time, I thought that there was another world. A world that contained no suffering. A world where pain didn’t exist. A world where everything went exactly how I wanted it to go. A world where everything was perfect. I didn’t know when I would enter this world, but I did know that I wasn’t in it. As I grew older, I realized that this magical world didn’t exist, at least in this current form of life that we know. No matter how good your life is going right now, there are still going to be a million negative things going on around you.
A lot of religions have different versions of what a perfect world could look like. Most commonly, the afterlife is the perfect world, the place that you get to go if you have lived a good life. I have no idea what happens when we die, none of us really do. But I do know that humans have a desire for everything to be perfect. This is why the concept of Heaven and an ideal world are so powerful. We want to have no problems to deal with. No annoying people. No dead-end job that we hate. No poverty. No tragedies. Unfortunately, the perfect world that we all imagine doesn’t exist and it never will on this planet. Since the start of humanity, there have been wars, problems, and suffering. And it will never, ever end.
There is nothing that people try to avoid more than pain and suffering. When we construct our lives, we try as hard as we can to build a life that has as little pain and suffering as possible. Obviously, suffering for no reason is pointless and not an enriching experience. But I would argue that suffering for something that is meaningful is very important (more on that later).
A lot of us get tricked. We are told to pursue our passions and then once it doesn’t work out we assume that something must be wrong with us.
Here is an example from my life:
From about second grade to eighth grade, I played sports. Football, basketball, and baseball were the three main sports that I participated in. I was never the best player on the team, but also far from the worst. Watching sports was by far my favorite thing to do in the world, so I figured that playing them would be just as fun.
I definitely enjoyed playing sports and I am really happy that I did. However, I never quite loved playing sports as much as I loved watching them. I remember feeling extremely anxious and angry one day because my favorite basketball team was playing at the same time that I had basketball practice. After that happened, I can now confess that I faked a couple of illnesses to get out of practice so I could watch my team play. Eventually, I quit playing because watching basketball was far more important to me than actually playing.
For the longest time, I couldn’t figure out why my passion for watching sports didn’t translate to playing them. But after about four years, I found the reason why. I simply wasn’t willing to go through the pain that was necessary to play a sport at a high level. Watching sports doesn’t involve any suffering. Playing a sport has a lot of it. And at the time, I wasn’t willing to suffer through the long practices that were required to play.
After I quit playing sports, I quickly found a way to keep myself as close as possible to the sports that I loved. I began to write about sports and discovered that I was willing to suffer through the struggles that come with being a writer. It is a much different type of pain, but it is definitely still there and I feel it.
After figuring this out, I no longer feel bad about not enjoying playing sports as much as I felt I should have. It just wasn’t for me.
I am sure that something similar has happened to you in your life. It is actually pretty common. When most people think about things that they could do for a career or hobby, they only think about the pleasant part of whatever they are doing. But everybody enjoys that part!
If you say that you want to be a writer, how you feel when you hit publish should not be the only factor in determining that you want to be a writer. Instead, you should focus on how you feel when you are halfway through a tough page and you can’t seem to find the right sentence to conclude your thoughts. If you can’t fight through and enjoy the pain that a writer has to go through, then the highs that an author experiences won’t keep you interested in being a writer for very long.
Find out what you are willing to suffer for
Everybody would love to be transported to the top of Mt. Everest right now to see the incredible view. But only a select few are willing to plan out their trip, carry all of their gear, and actually climb the mountain. If you are not willing to climb the metaphorical mountain and do all the hard work that it takes to get to the top, then it is in your best interest to invest your time elsewhere. Otherwise, you will find yourself miserable.
“And in spite of everything, no human suffering can be compared to anyone else’s because it is part of the nature of suffering that it is the suffering of a particular person, that it is his or her own suffering… Therefore, it would be pointless to speak of differences in the magnitude of suffering; but a difference that truly matters is that between meaningful and meaning-less suffering,” wrote Viktor Frankl.
You should figure out what meaningful suffering means for you in your life. This should be the goal that you set for yourself. Do you really want to write every single day? Or do you just want a published book? Are you prepared and willing to study for exams and write papers? Or do you just want the diploma? Do you really want to post videos for three years with nobody viewing them? Or do you just want to become a famous YouTuber?
These are the questions that you should be asking yourself. Don’t think about your ideal end result. Chances are it involves money, fame, and accomplishments. Everybody likes these things! But not everybody is willing to go through the pain and suffering that is required to achieve them.
Set a goal for yourself to find out what you are willing to suffer for. And then once you find it, pursue it to the fullest extent.