25 Answers

  1. “Suffering is necessary” sounds harsh. Something like “pain is needed”. What is it necessary for?

    Another thing is that few people do without suffering in this world, so our difficult life is arranged. And suffering can make a person better. After all, it acts as a touchstone: it makes you reevaluate yourself, your life, your values, and the people around you. As a result of such a reassessment, a person can change his attitude to life and in the future give more to other people; an idea; a global goal, which he knows for sure that he will not see its achievement with his own eyes.

    Did you notice that I wrote “maybe” everywhere? That is, the “can't” option is also real. Because suffering can also break you. By the nature of my work, I often see such people.

    Speaking of “making us better”, love also does an excellent job of this task.

  2. After any suffering, there is a good reason to think about what surrounds you-people / lifestyle / your problems after these thoughts, solutions will appear, how to stop or change it all, that is, you will unconsciously look for alternative ways to prevent your suffering.�

    Get better at what you've already experienced. I don't think that any specific repetitions of situations will appear after you have already experienced them and thought about them.�

  3. It depends on what you mean by suffering. If we take the modern definition of “torment and pain”, then they are necessary for so many reasons. To boost your immunity if you get sick. For self-discipline, if you are lazy. For humility, if you are impudent. To keep the body under control, if you are an ascetic or an artist.

    And if we understand suffering in the original sense, as an antonym of action (remember, real and passive participles), that is, what is done to a person, and not what a person does. Such sufferings, in my opinion, are not just unnecessary, but harmful and worth getting rid of. This is also the goal of asceticism in any culture (overcoming passions).

  4. Thank you, this is a very good question.

    Suffering is not necessary. Life in our world is inextricably linked with suffering, and this is the first noble truth of Buddhism and any self-respecting religion. There is suffering. There's no getting away from it. You can only find ways to fit it into life in such a way that it is useful.

  5. Suffering is a way out of your comfort zone.

    Suffering “makes us better” because it pumps adrenaline and other hormones into our bloodstream, makes us move, push ourselves, invent new things and solve problems by jumping over our heads, which means we can develop. Both mentally and physically.

    These words “makes us better” mean a person's goal: “Development”, self-improvement.

    And without effort and effort, you can live to death as I am, as I was born. Suffering from the cold forces us to invent clothes and build a house. Suffering from hunger-forces us to store and preserve food. And the rest of the suffering, from bad grades at school to being called names by classmates, forces a person to lift himself up from his chair and solve problems with a grunt.

  6. Why does a person need to suffer? This is not the right question!!! Why is it necessary for a person to cause suffering to another person and make their life worse? Here's the real question that should hatch out of the blank first. The world was created in good, there was no evil in it. People, and only people, are the source of evil. Only knowledge of oneself, knowledge in search of the original, the good, can make a person better.

  7. With such questions, you're on your way to the psych ward. You have very poor introspection, deduction…It is a pity that in the 21st century people have such thoughts. There is a sense of limited intelligence and a lack of spiritual support-education. People strive for happiness and comfort, and what you wrote… I don't even know how you came up with this idea, but it would be nice if you answered this question here, because you had a very bad childhood. Apparently, you have confused the method(work, self-development) with the goal (happiness, comfort). Understand for yourself that for you the real comfort is for me to do nothing and watch TV. If you think that work is suffering, then find a sponsor and minimize your needs… there is a saying-you can't easily pull a fish out of a pond. People work hard to make themselves happy, but work is far from pleasant, you need to be able to balance… many people who don't know how to balance get injured at work, and some don't even know how to communicate with people…You, as Christians, have made the path to achieving the goal (you can read the commandments – see the Labor Code of the Russian Federation ) your goal.

  8. The Son of God suffered unto death, not that we should not suffer, but that our sufferings might become like His.

    George MacDonald.

    And personally, I would like to add. God never gives suffering above and beyond what a particular person can bear.

  9. Hello!

    I understand your question, it is quite deep and it is not so easy to answer. Suffering is really the punishment that you receive for your specific actions. But how do you know how much you need to suffer for a particular act? This case is controversial and unclear. But we just sometimes feel that the punishment will come. Only no one indicates the measure. And there are difficulties with this.

    For example, the loss of a loved one can be prolonged sobbing and suffering. But after all, everything has already happened and you can't bring a person back with tears, how can you return happiness and joy to life? This is a very difficult question. Sometimes you just want to help a person and say that these sufferings are not necessary, neither for you nor for your loved one. He would like gratitude, but pleasant memories, and good deeds to remember, but not to cry and cry for days. But alas, this is sometimes impossible to do for the reason that everyone chooses for himself what is more important and necessary for him.

    I will tell you a story about suffering that I sometimes remember.

    And so, my daughter is almost 13 years old. a child who is kind and open and really wants to be in demand. At that time, her friend was a girl from the neighboring yard, they came to our house a couple of times. In the evening, the phone rings and my daughter explains to me that she and her friend are going to the store, this girl needs to buy an office and my daughter will keep her company. My persuasions do not help, go home, because Diana has no personal money. She explains everything by saying that they have money for the road and Diana will just be with a friend. I agree. After a while, a security guard from a stationery store calls me and says that the girls were detained and Diana was trying to take out a rather large amount of money in her bag. I'm in shock! I take a taxi, go to the store, understand and understand that my daughter was not lucky with a girlfriend. She persuaded her to take her bag with her and put everything she wanted. The girl has no parents and lives with her grandmother. All I had to do was lecture her and tell her that her mother was watching her, that she would like to be proud of her little girl. I let her go in peace.

    When I gave the last of my money to the store, I was very upset. I didn't have the energy to swear. I was walking and talking to my daughter. I told her: “Daughter, you know how much I love you , I told you that I dreamed about your birth, more than anything else in the world! I also want you to grow up to be a good and decent person. What did I do wrong? Where is my mistake? Tell me how do I look at you now? What should I do about my feelings for the princess I adore so much? How can I think of you as my angel? How, do you imagine that? After all, I have to accept that you became a thief today? You took someone else's and decided that it could belong to you just like that!? “

    After our conversation, I offered my daughter to make up for her guilt with pain.

    I told her that if she wanted us to never remember this incident again and get her good name back, I would punish her with a belt!

    And she agreed. I whipped my beloved daughter with tears in my eyes. We both cried, and my daughter bravely endured all the blows. I don't remember how many of them there were, but her butt hurt for a long time. We hugged my daughter and I promised that I would never remember this incident. And she promised me that I would keep my good name and carry it with pride, because it should be no other way.

    We talked about what happened more than once, and she always said that I was right then. And she is very grateful to me for doing so. I know for a fact that sometimes suffering is the best cure for feelings of guilt, as well as karmic knots.

    Here is such a case was in my life. I don't know, maybe they'll throw tomatoes at me , but I don't regret sharing it. Maybe for someone it will also be a way out. And being a mentor to your children is hard, but rewarding.

  10. “Better” or “worse” are subjective opinions of different individuals about certain things and not the fact that these opinions make sense. Everything has its own meaning and purpose. This world doesn't make sense the way most people see it-trying to satisfy their feelings with more and more sophisticated methods. It is this vision of the world that leads to anxiety and suffering,that is, it calls for a review of this very vision of the world. And also suffering is purification and it can be forced measures, or conscious restrictions. In the first case, as a cleansing, attempts to correct, and in the second, have a motive, meaning. In the first case, it is an unintelligent life, in a reasonable form of life(human), and in the second case it is more reasonable.�

  11. Suffering is an experience. Easier – you beat a person with a whip (God forbid) and experience pleasure. You are experiencing it for a very simple reason – no one has ever beaten you before. But here you are being whipped. You scream in pain and scream in fear for your life, which is about to be beaten out of you.

    What is the outcome of this experience? You have learned from your own experience what pain is. When you walk past someone who is being beaten, you should remember your experience and feel compassion for them. They should, but they don't have to. Duty comes with understanding. And understanding fertilizes the state. If it is not there, then you can experience the joy that it is not you who is being beaten, thank God.

    It sounds corny, but this is the everyday life of personal development.

    Suffering is a lesson. If you've been whipped for stealing, you'll probably be careful not to steal. And then you will think about it some time, and then you will realize, and then you will decide not to steal. And in this way, very slowly, almost imperceptibly, you become better.

    This is a very simplified example. In addition, the learning process is stretched for more than a dozen lifetimes. Although tangible results are possible in one incarnation. As a rule, they are the result of extraordinary events, tragedies, emotional explosions and ideological upheavals.

  12. Suffering is not necessary, but let us reflect on the fact that man can neither distinguish nor understand WITHOUT comparing.

    Is not it so?

    What does a person think about when everything is fine?

    About what a good fellow he is-a daredevil or a good girl-a daredevil, that I came up with everything so well and WOW what a hero (heroine) I am.

    And then suddenly bam and something “broke”…

    Friends don't make friends, work doesn't work… for what?

    But simply, among all the “good” things, a person ceases to distinguish that he is doing something wrong, at the wrong time, offends someone, does not notice the obvious… it's all very well… it was.

    And now the person says- ” I suffer…”.

    But after all, according to their deeds, everything is received!

    Is not it so?

    And this is not suffering, but a lesson! Just watch and learn it, understand what happened, and don't do it again!

    But where there!

    It's THEIR fault, it's THEM who are wrong!

    I'm the right one, white, fluffy and the best!

    And bam … the suffering has already come, but how else can you explain to a person that he was wrong? But no way!

    But even if such a lesson is not learned, it will not be understood… catch it!

    But not with a small shovel, not with a children's shovel, but with a dump truck.

    That's the answer to the question.

    And who won't believe it after that?.. then the dump truck will be replaced for him with something more, possibly deadly.

  13. And how does it follow that suffering is necessary for a person? I don't think it comes out of nowhere, just as it doesn't come out of nowhere that suffering makes us better.

    Our body and our life among other people are such that it is impossible to completely avoid suffering. We all happen to get sick, but no one says that diseases are necessary for some reason and make us better.

    There are many examples of how a person who has experienced suffering has become wiser, kinder, and more tolerant… But there are no less opposite examples, when suffering embittered, forced to withdraw into yourself, become indifferent to someone else's pain.

    The thesis of the necessity and usefulness of suffering is often used by religious propaganda, usually with reference to the suffering of Christ. But even within the framework of the Christian paradigm, this thesis is false: Christ suffered not for the sake of suffering as such, but for the sake of saving humanity.

  14. If from a religious point of view. Then in Hebrews 12: 5-6 : “My son! Do not despise
    the Lord's chastisement, and do not be discouraged when He rebukes you.6 For the Lord punishes whomever he loves;
    “but strikes every son whom he receives” in the original Greek, the real meaning is not ” punishment , but education; for he scourges, and does not strike, and corrects, and does not punish. From the interpretation of Theophylact of Bulgaria “in order that you may understand the flagellation of your son not in the sense of revenge for evil, but in the sense of teaching. Whom he accepts, that is, whom He admits to Himself, accepts more often than others, whom he brings closer as a close friend.”. The fact is that in principle we know negligibly little about the Divine nature, both from the point of view of religion and as physics from the point of view of science. If we are designed to live outside the body, then we probably still have a lot to learn. The energy world has different laws.

  15. Yoga philosophy states that suffering comes from ignorance, avidya-ignorance of one's true nature and purpose. Suffering, therefore, is an unavoidable element of our life and it haunts us until we know ourselves, our true nature and our purpose in this life. Based on this theory, suffering is metaphysical in nature, although it is based on biological or psychological premises and mechanisms. It has different forms: dissatisfaction with something or someone, suffering from illness, accident, hunger, violence, deception, envy, jealousy, etc. Depending on how a person perceives the suffering that has fallen to his lot: as undeserved and unfair, or, on the contrary, unavoidable and natural, various options for responding to this problem are possible. Pain, suffering, and need in the East are considered the best, though very cruel, teachers. The worst of all strategies for dealing with suffering is to try to avoid it with alcohol or other intoxicants.

  16. The question is not entirely correct. The fact is that a person is inherently lazy. You can argue, but let's take psychology and compare coronavirus with the plague in the 18th century, the psychology of behavior will be the same. That is, psychologically, we have not changed much from medieval people, and maybe from people of the Stone Age. I repeat, people are lazy to change themselves. But a person has a mind, unlike the rest of the world's population. Therefore, in order to move at least somewhere, suppressing your laziness-a person needs problems/tasks. Not suffering, but problems. And why a person perceives it as suffering is a question of individual psychology. But it is after crises that a person is able to understand what is good for him and what is bad for him. Because if everything is the same, the person will not understand. This is the structure of the human mind.

  17. The question is posed incorrectly. The universal laws are based on Love. There is no suffering, there is only a test and it is given to everyone as far as possible to overcome it. That is, on the edge of possibilities. The more difficult the test, the higher the progress on the path of spiritual perfection. There is no punishment, there are only repeated repetitions of what is not learned for the Soul. Therefore, such trials are perceived by a person as suffering, not realizing that these trials are not so much for him as for the Soul. The soul is immortal, and even the death of a person is just the end of another lesson of development and perfection based on Love.

  18. Suffering itself is a mistake of the complex human structure.And naturally brings pain.So it teaches a person, if it does not completely get rid of pain.Then it treats them correctly.A kind of workout,and everything is much easier for a trained body!

  19. Here everything is really very simple. The fact is that a person very quickly adapts to everything and gets used to it. Obviously, this property of the psyche was developed in the process of evolution, as one of the key factors of survival.

    Unfortunately, there is a downside to getting used to it. We quickly stop noticing what we're used to. And now those amazing miracles that we see every day do not cause any emotions in us. Life becomes measured, bland, boring. On this occasion, there is a wonderful monologue by Louis Seacay (only in English, unfortunately). youtube.com

    And here suffering comes to the rescue. This is always an emotional process of great intensity, which breaks a person out of the routine of his daily existence. The circumstances of life, relationships with other people, and your own problems are presented in a completely new perspective. What once seemed difficult and unbearable becomes complete nonsense during suffering. There is an opportunity to re-evaluate your own values, so to speak, to adjust the measure that a person measures everything and everyone around him.

    When the suffering recedes, the person can finally understand how much his normal, ordinary state is worth. Sees that a simple ordinary life is actually a rare happiness, and can enjoy it. Until he gets used to it again 🙂

  20. Everyone has already said so, and I will cite the words of L. Brik as an example: “It is good for Volodya to suffer, he will suffer and write good poems.”the conclusion is clear.

  21. Suffering helps the individual analyze mistakes made in the past. Due to the fact that most of us are in the comfort zone,or everyday life, pain is given in order to understand: what I really am, what I do in this world, what I can give to society, humanity. When we are in this state, we are able to think about those people who are doing worse than the one who is suffering right now and think about others who are in a worse situation and living environment. As a result, we can conclude: suffering=understanding the world, society, Self-personality

  22. Because society is ruled by parasites who need to keep their victims depressed. Suffering destroys, and the “habit of suffering” usually means a ruined life. It doesn't take much intelligence to figure out where the legs of this myth grow from – from the caste religious system “now you will suffer, then you will be born a higher caste/you will be rewarded”. But this myth also has a real echo – a person degrades from an excessively well-fed life, which is clearly seen in the children of the “new Russians” and other hereditary rich people, such as Paris Hilton.

  23. Suffering is not a catharsis, of course, it is usually just whining in social networks about how bad everything is, “I broke a nail”,” I'm throwing up in Kiev, but I can't go”,” I got drunk ” and so on.

    This public suffering has a meaning. Show the world that the name is there. And then suddenly everyone forgot that it exists. And then-I whined, and immediately as if alive, they will come and support me. All this looks pathetic, causes mostly disgust, do not do this ever.

    There is a different kind of suffering, but it is almost never written about anywhere, and I fear that soon the very language in which it can be spoken will cease to exist. If you ever experience it, you won't want to ask about it or talk about it – it's a very intimate experience, maybe the most intimate we can feel.

  24. If we perceive suffering as a catharsis-purification, then this is a very necessary and useful state of our psyche and soul. Another thing is that not everyone can stand this suffering. Then suffering entails “contamination” rather than purification.

  25. I have two answers to this question, specifically-physical or religiously provocative. For the second part, I expect to get a lot of disadvantages and I want to note that initially Christianity also meant the specific bodily side of the answer, it simply expressed it in its own language, and my second part of the answer is related to a distorted and superficial understanding of the topic of suffering.

    1) Specific-body response: Suffering is the pain of the soul. And it is also a very specific pain in the body (often in the area of the heart, solar plexus or in the head), which carries certain signals. Pain helps a person know where something is going wrong in their body. Pain is a signal that you need to be more attentive to yourself, show yourself more care in a certain place. If the pain is not noticed, then the source of the problem grows and the harm to the body can increase many times. This applies both to toothache or pain from a fracture, and the consequences of shock from the sudden death of a loved one (shallow breathing and chest tension). I discussed this topic in more detail when answering the question ” why does the soul hurt?” thequestion.ru

    Any pain says something. And it needs to be heard in order to find adequate help. Pain must be respected and learned to endure. To adequately help both yourself and other people.

    You need to be able to distinguish your pain from their pain, otherwise there is a risk of putting a cast on a loved one when your leg is broken yourself. This also applies to the religious side of the issue, because they go to God for comfort and support.

    2) Religious-provocative response: Some people substitute the desire to be able to withstand pain with the desire to hurt themselves in order to test their endurance. And this desire leads not to personal courage, but to mosachism and a position of sacrifice. One way to handle intense pain is to take pride in your stamina: “My husband beats me, but I still love him and wish him happiness” is often accompanied by “I'm stronger than my husband because I can handle more pain and not respond in kind.” Here there is a moral triumph over a weak insignificant (before the face of God) husband: “he will go to hell, and I will go to heaven.” This is called pride in religion. And this moral triumph is possible only in the position of a victim, in which a person talks a lot about his pain, but says it without feeling pain, covers it with his pride.

    As a result, a person accumulates such a wild amount of unexpressed pain that he is even afraid to look at it, because it can overwhelm and wrest control of behavior (they say that a person is possessed by a demon). And a person lives in fear of losing his moral triumph, and is even ready to experience a little more pain (there is still so much of it that a little more of the overall picture will not change) for the sake of another moral victory. One of the ways to find such a victory is to meet some sadist and marry him… or start courting a girl who clearly dislikes you. Or go prove to Jehovah's witnesses that there is only one God, and his name is Cthulhu, and something else from the same series. The main thing is to choose an opponent who is obviously stronger than yourself and defiantly lose to him. If suddenly there is no suitable person nearby, then there is always the option of self-torture, from overtime to cutting yourself with a razor in secluded places. And this behavior obviously brings pain, but it also provides a moral celebration that keeps memories of past pain out of the mind.

    A small controlled pain saves you from a large incomprehensible pain and the fear of losing control.

    ps: People who have a tendency to mosachistic behavior may see me now as a sadist who deprives them of moral triumph, and this “causes” them pain. I am ready for your disadvantages, I will survive 😉

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