sapientbreeze

Life is a sequence of good and bad days. Sometimes we need to remind ourselves that this is inevitable. For the best and worst of days, you must remember that you are fallible… Just like every other person in existence, you will experience the very extremes of existence throughout your life. Though it’s no real comfort in the moment, the inevitability of your suffering will eventually lead you back towards peace.

For the bad days, when we have fallen short and feel helpless to change your circumstances… remember that this is normal and is supposed to happen. It will happen to everyone. It will happen to the people you love and the people you hate. The real work takes place on days like this: anyone can move towards their goals on a good day. This is not to say you should push forward regardless of your circumstances. First, you must find compassion for yourself, and therefore humanity.

To find peace, step back from yourself and your direct experience for a moment… often, a deep breath can help facilitate this. On particularly bad days, perhaps close your eyes for a moment as well. Maybe you made a mistake, maybe you took deliberate action: regardless, suffering and misery has befallen you… acknowledge the inherent difficulty in that. As you acknowledge the truth of your own suffering, acknowledge too that this is an inevitable part of the human experience. We are united by suffering: all people of all times have suffered. This is not to trivialize your suffering, but to open a path towards accepting it.

As you accept suffering, don’t accept that you deserve to suffer, but rather accept its inevitability. Try to turn the situation from “why is this happening to me” to “woah, something THIS BAD is happening to me”. The “why” is the trap… the why is rather obvious if you’re grounded and thinking clearly. You are alive, and therefore the suffering of life will eventually find you. Perhaps you will hasten its arrival, or you will do everything “right”… but to live is to be in the path of suffering. Regardless of what part you or others played in bringing the suffering, it’s here.

We humans suffer more for our supposed agency, as we feel that we should have done more to avoid this suffering. This is a mischaracterization: you may have been able to avoid this particular suffering, but you cannot avoid suffering as a whole.

There are deeper layers of truth to this, for your mistakes themselves are gateways for personal development. Many have arrived at this concept, for we learn little from our successes, but much from our failures. What’s more: failure, disappointment, misery, dejectedness, helplessness… these experiences and more build strength and character that cannot be fabricated by a fancy school, academy, workshop, or self help book. The strongest people were not born thus: they were born weak, frail, discouraged, abandoned, hated and misunderstood.

This is the ultimate secret behind existence: the more “unfair” life has been for you, the better off you are if you can manage to fight through. If you survive, and realize that there is no one to be bitter towards, no use in holding onto resentment or grudges, you will grow. You will come out the other side of that suffering reforged, but between now and then you will feel broken by your suffering. Take your time is healing, and find someone who matters to you to help buoy your soul in the darkness. Allow yourself both the pain, but also to experience the beauty of such suffering. Do your best to stay on the Path: actions taken even now should be actions that take you higher. Don’t allow yourself to slip further into the darkness. You still matter, and now more than ever. Good luck, warrior.