There's Only One Question: What Do You Want to Suffer For?

The first Noble Truth from the Buddha is “Life is suffering.”

I mean, come on, he stuck it right up there at the top of the list, no messing around or softening the blow. Damn.

He’s right of course (it turns out he was kind of a big deal when it came to being wise), you see, everyone has problems and every path is hard. There will always be something to moan about, always something to bother us, poke at us, sap our energy, take our attention, force us to do something. There is always a hassle and stress somewhere.

Life is constantly pulling us towards entropy and it’s a daily chore to pull it back to order. It’s bloody relentless, I tell you.

As author Charles Bukowski once wrote:

“I don’t know about other people, but when I wake up in the morning and put my shoes on, I think, Jesus Christ, now what?”

Yep, life is hard. It comes with problems built-in as standard; a bit like those shitty apps you get on your phone that you can’t delete. They’re there and you’ve just got to accept them if you want to keep the phone.

Suffering is life's bloatware.

Evangelist Pastor Joel Osteen spins a yarn each week at his super church somewhere in the depths of the American south. He’s a whacky character to most Americans, let alone us British.

But Osteen talks some sense if we’re prepared to listen. He once said:

“With every blessing comes a burden.”

I’m not sure why, but these words stuck with me. I thought about it when I moved into a new house with a fancy shower room but I had to dry the walls for five minutes each time I used it. Or when I got a job I didn’t loathe but it turned out I still had to do shitty work tasks.

You see, without wanting to sound cynical – everything sucks. Or, to put it a little less nihilistically – nothing comes for free.

The rich kid whose Daddy bought him a Porsche? They’re not going to enjoy that Porsche one-thousandth of the amount as someone who has saved for it.

Got a big house? Big mortgage.

At the height of your game? It’s tough at the top.

Young and attractive? No one takes you seriously.

Have a super relationship? Don’t neglect it.

Won the lottery? Mind the existential gap.

With every blessing comes a burden. There will always be suffering no matter how small that suffering may be.

Jordan Peterson said in his book ‘12 Rules for Life’ that we’ve got to create a life worth suffering for, else we’re going to run into existential trouble.

We are not always in control of life but we are in control of our suffering. This is the part where we have a choice.

Choose Your Torture

If all activities in life produce suffering, then why not endure the suffering with the greatest payouts?

We can choose to suffer for pleasing outcomes rather than pleasing actions.

The gym is a great example of this and as usual a metaphor for almost everything. Even if you’re one of these people who enjoy the gym, it’s suffering; the effort, the exhaustion, the strain. You go to the gym and suffer there to avoid sitting on the sofa, drinking beer and suffering for your laziness later in the form of guilt, weight gain and self-respect.

Everything sucks at some point. Everything comes with a side order of discomfort and difficulty, a pinch of angst, a serving of burden. But it’s what we choose to suffer for that makes life worthwhile.

Just about the most successful comedian ever, Jerry Seinfeld, told Howard Stern that it never got easier. He said it’s all work. He said:

“Your blessing in life is when you find the torture you’re comfortable with.”

Suffering in life isn’t a new concept, the Buddha has been talking about it for two and a half thousand years. But choosing and accepting our suffering consciously might be the mental tweak we need to allow us to endure the hardships of life.

It’s our duty to choose how we suffer through defining what we’re suffering for. That is what gives life meaning.

If we refuse to choose our suffering, it will be chosen for us.

To accept there is no life without suffering means we can step toward, welcoming it as a sign of growth and progress towards what we have chosen to suffer for.

As Nietzsche said:

“He who has a why to live for can beat almost any how.”

So life is suffering, but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t happiness. It just means we can choose to suffer for it; to suffer for that loving relationship, that dream job, that healthy body, that family home, that holiday, that friendship, that creative output.

Why not suffer for what you want? Why not suffer and suffer some damn more for your goals and dreams and desires? If you choose not to work towards something, you’re still going to suffer anyway, so you may as well get what you want in the process. Right?