I've been listening a lot to The Secret, A New Earth, and a bunch of other mainstream "revolutionary" ideas for happiness (most of which are recycled from ancient philosophies, but I digress). I figured that I should at least give them the respect of knowing what they're all about. Mostly what I have found is that so many people who have discovered "the way to be happy" fail to discuss the importance of suffering.

If we were blissfully happy all the time, we would never feel motivated to progress. We'd be so happy just where we are that we wouldn't want to be anywhere else. We would never venture to discover new things, explore new places, or create anything.

We need dissatisfaction. We need it to push us forward. We need boredom to motivate us to do something. We need to use that criticizing left side of our brain (not the right sided bliss) to think about the world, to solve problems, to know the limits we must put on ourselves, and to generate new ideas. Dissatisfaction and suffering is the reason why our species has evolved to where we are today and why you're even able to read this at all.

I don't want to be like a flower, just sitting there and blissfully waiting for the sun and the rain to nourish it, unaware of the cow that's about to eat it. I want to worry.

I want to know my problems, so I can figure out ways to avoid them. I want to be prepared for natural disasters and household accidents. I want to do everything I can to protect my children and help them grow, to increase my lifespan, to share my life with my husband, and to crawl out of my suffering even stronger and wiser than before.

And then, and only then, can I truly appreciate my moments of bliss, the moments when I get to meditate or embrace the present or laugh. It is the fear of suffering that pushes us to stand up and work and compels us to appreciate the rewards for our efforts.

Every person who has done something amazing has done it by fearing suffering and longing for pleasure, not by sitting blissfully like a flower all the time. Suffering leads us to success.

I embrace suffering with gratitude. I don't say, "Why me?" I say, "Wow, this sucks! This is horrendous. I need to figure out a way to keep this from ever happening to me again. I need to help other people avoid this. Lucky me that I learned from this and survived, so I can do something about it."

How lucky I am to have suffered. How lucky I am to be wiser because of my suffering. How lucky I am to appreciate everything more because I have suffered in its absence (real or imaginary).

Suffering is a gift.

Labels: Deep Thoughts and Philosophy, The Quest for Happiness