In this last episode, we’ll talk about dealing with the hardest part of life: suffering.
When it comes to dealing with pain, I prefer the Book of Job mindset. This is a pretty complicated topic that I’ve already covered before, so instead I’m just going to link my original post here. However, most of what I have to say about dealing with pain revolves around that in some way.
There’s quite a few spectrums of thought when it comes to dealing with pain. The Stoics believed that one ought to cultivate resilience, by making yourself just a little bit uncomfortable at different points of your day. Cold showers are a classic example of this, but there are many small, non-damaging things you can do to yourself that will help make hard things just a little bit easier.
Another method is to recognize the good that can be made out of suffering. For example, it might come one day that you are dying of terminal cancer. Well, you could set up a donation drive — not for yourself, but for others with your disease, or for medical research. Like we said last time, there’s always a move.
Finally, you could step back from the situation to see things more clearly. When a devastating event occurs, such as the death of a partner, it’s easy to think that the whole world is falling apart — and it very well might, if you don’t get yourself together quickly. When you step back and look at the whole picture, you realize that there are in fact steps to stabilize the situation — you just need to make the moves to get them settled.
To end off our last episode on Life, I’ll give one last word. It’s not necessarily a tip, just an important thing to remember: the blissful moments in life are impossible without the painful ones. Red is only pretty because not everything is red. Chocolate is only tasting because not everything tastes like it. Good is good because evil exists. Happiness is happiness because suffering exists.
Apalla 