Don't waste pain
All of us suffer.
The difference is that we can suffer pointlessly, or we can suffer productively.
Pointless suffering primarily comes from
1. A desire to control others and manipulate outcomes.
2. Valuing yesterday over tomorrow.
3. Rejecting those who, or that which, does not make us FEEL good at this very moment.
All three things come from a desire to indulge ourselves.
The indulgent life attempts to deter, or at least delay suffering, as it focuses on gratification for the immediate short term. When we do eventually suffer, we tend to blame other people, or other things, for our suffering. We act as though we did not “deserve” the pain. It is the cruelty of the other person, the corruption of that other thing, that is responsible for our suffering.
Productive suffering primarily comes from
1. A willingness to give up a lesser good for a greater good. It accepts a hierarchy of good, as also hierarchy of responsibility, and willing subjects itself to the pain of choosing the higher over the lower. Choosing our better self is always more painful than opting for our lesser self to ensure that it’s always a result of our conscious choosing. Our lesser self is the default and doesn’t need any active choice. It’s what we fall into passively. Every time we choose our better self, it causes great pain to the pointless sufferer who is trying to control our behaviour and outcomes! Don’t be set back by their raves & rants.
2. A willingness to delay using a current good for a later greater multiplied good. It sees tomorrow as a real possibility and lives and acts as though yesterday is dead, but tomorrow is the baby in the womb. Embracing the discipline, respect and love for what is yet to come.
3. A willingness to let go one way of being or, let go of our own inclinations, to embrace another way of being that does not immediately appear natural to us or does not immediately seem like some we would feel like doing.
In simple words productive pain is love gone right, and pointless pain is love gone wrong. We really can do little else than love. Hate is only love gone wrong. The complete absence of love is apathy and those who suffer from it are insipid, empty, lukewarm beings worthy of being spat out.
The difference between love and hate is that the first causes us to suffer productively. The latter produces pointless suffering.
Learn to love your tomorrow, more than you hate your yesterday. Isn’t “Today” simply the choice we daily make of living in our yesterdays, or living in our tomorrows?
Living in the present, just this moment, take each day as it comes, seems like a heady ecstatic possibility. Yet there is no escaping that each moment is simply reflective of the pointlessness, or productiveness, of our very being.
The older we get, the more it may seem like there is nothing much to look forward to. Most of us, even if we have not experienced it for ourselves as yet have either heard or witnessed this in others. Yet, isn’t this is the fulfilling finality of a tragic, pointless, wasted life?
Shouldn’t it be that the older we get, the more clarity we possess and the greater our love of our tomorrow be? Isn’t this the destiny of love? Just as everything gets clearer and bigger the closer you get to it.
Life is indeed a journey. The pointless life a journey downwards where each passing day produces a looming dread end. The productive life produces an upward journey where each passing day generates excitement and expectancy of what is yet to come.
Seek and you will find if you seek with ALL your heart.
Find and receive that beatific vision, which pumps your inner being with hope and excitement, long after all the pleasures and lusts of life have lost its lustre for you.
Love gone wrong is the craving for how things were and how people should be.
Love gone right is a longing for the yet to be known, a hoping for even greater and fuller fulfilment, a burning desire that arises from the understanding of the ever-increasing standards, ideals and levels of perfection that exist even for our own being.
Don’t let it be “I will create pain till everything reverts to ways I’ve known and am comfortable with”
Don’t let it be “I will cause so much suffering till I teach that person a lesson”
Suffer willingly. Suffer consciously. Suffer knowingly. Suffer to produce your best self. Don’t be satisfied with being just a “good” human being.
Strive to be that better human being you can be. Then strive to be the best version of yourself.
Your best self is an eternity away from you. Seek it. Find it. Embrace it. Love your best self with all your heart.
Don’t waste pain. Use it willingly. Knowingly. Consciously.
There is no escape from pain here. Only your choice of experiencing it pointlessly in bitterness and resentments - which is empty and fruitless. Or using it productively by simply loving yourself and consistently wanting your transformational best self.