“Been there, done that.”

We often use this expression about positive experiences that no longer interest or excite us. But what if we can have the same attitude towards negative experiences as well, by being unfazed by discomfort, uncertainty or rejection? To get there, we have to embrace suffering first.

The Bubble of the Modern World

Modern life is structured around avoiding suffering however possible.

This usually happens through immediate salves that take away the suffering for a short time. If you are hungry, have a cookie or a bag of chips—avoid the suffering of hunger. If you are bored, go scroll Instagram or Twitter or Snapchat or Tiktok or Reddit or whatever—avoid the suffering of boredom. If you are feeling some kind of emotional dysregulation, have a drink or play a video game or use drugs or binge eat or you can imagine other things, whatever gets your mind off of whatever emotional problem you are having.

The Buddhists say that life is suffering. I don’t think all of life is bad, and by extension, I don’t think all of suffering is bad.

Suffering is a form of stress. Chronic stress is bad for us, but acute stress is often good for us. The human body responds to acute stress by becoming stronger. The best example of this is exercise—when we stress the body’s systems temporarily, the body produces adaptations (improved lung capacity, muscular strength and bone density) that improves long-term health. I think the same can be true for emotional stress and suffering.

What Kinds of Suffering Are Good for Us?

I think there are a lot of kinds of suffering that have silver linings. I’ll discuss three: privation (voluntary or not), rejection or failure, and uncertainty.

Privation

There’s clear evidence that some kinds of denial are good for us.

Human beings have practiced fasting for millennia, usually as part of a religious commitment. Modern society has invented all kinds of variants on fasting, like intermittent fasting, water or juice fasts, no-carbohydrate fasting periods, et cetera. All of these are designed to reset or relax body systems in some way. There’s even evidence that caloric deprivation (up to a point) increases human lifespan. Fasting teaches not just physical endurance, but also emotional patience—the ability to sit with discomfort and delay instant gratification.

People are also experimenting with other forms of denial—with social media or other entertainment/technology “fasts” becoming increasingly popular with the kinds of people that would read a blog like this. I uninstalled all of the socials I actually used (Reddit) and now, when I’m standing in the grocery store line, I just give myself a chance to be bored, or maybe talk to the person standing in line next to me. Certain types of personal growth activities also fall into this realm. Doing a Vipasana retreat certainly qualifies as privation, but I don’t think any person who has done it would ever say they didn’t grow from it!

Rejection and Failure

I frequently tell my students that I wish I could fail 80% of them.

It’s not because they deserve to fail—they don’t, they are quite diligent—but in my view, they would benefit from it. This relates to the fear of failure, which I write about often. When we try and fail, however painful the experience may be, we quickly realize that it’s not nearly as bad as we thought and we are more likely to try again in the future. In other words, the fear lessens with every attempt.

The broader point here is not so much about the fear, but rather the aftereffect pain having less and less impact over time. Once we experience the pain and suffering of failure, we realize it’s just not that bad and we start to get unfazed by it. This is also true in any sphere where rejection or heartbreak is a real possibility—romance, sales, applying for something—it’s all the same. Eventually we get to the point where we develop a “thick skin” or get a degree from “the school of hard knocks.”

These are good things.

Uncertainty

Uncertainty and the anxiety associated with it can also be good forms of suffering.

I write often about feeling the uncertainty and acting from the place of uncertainty. In the context of suffering specifically, uncertainty can mean that we are facing a decision of importance. If it was a decision we didn’t care about, we wouldn’t feel any emotion about it at all. To me, the anxiety is a clue that we are moving towards things that matter to us. Even if we don’t get the result we want, the suffering of uncertainty is a sign that we are taking risks that matter. If we never feel uncertain, it could mean that we are not aiming high enough.

What Happens When We Don’t Suffer?

To me, never suffering is like spending our lives inside an airtight bubble.

I don’t know if people actually live in airtight bubbles, but my impression is that if they did, they would develop all kinds of weird immune syndromes because their bodies were never given the chance to develop normal immunity to ordinary pathogens. Vaccines work this way—a mild version of the disease is injected into our system, we suffer for a little bit, and our body develops an immunity to the bug that lasts in some cases for the rest of our lives.

This seems especially important in the context of children. Not just the disease angle, but also shielding them from the normal rigors of life. An increasing number of wealthy people seem to be rethinking the value of leaving large amounts of money to their children. These people often became wealthy out of a process of struggling and suffering, and if they deny that opportunity to struggle and suffer to their children, their children won’t grow up with the same sense of toughness and resolve that they had.

I think this is also important for adults, and even if we’ve experienced our share of suffering in the past. In my view, we don’t want to become completely “soft.” So think about ways where you can embrace some low-grade suffering in your life. Can you handle being bored for a bit? Pushing yourself in your exercise? Trying something and falling flat on your face? Try it! It might be good for you.

Exercise

Journal on the following or discuss with a friend.

What suffering are you avoiding that could make you stronger?

1)      Noticing

Where in my life am I suffering? Where in my life am I avoiding suffering, of any kind?

2)      Reflection

At what points in my life have I experienced suffering of any kind? Major life events, or minor ones?

As painful as the suffering may have been, or still is, did I gain anything from the experience? Have I become stronger or more resilient in any way?

3)      Action

In what area of my life can I stand to experiment with suffering? Can I embrace boredom, physical privation, uncertainty and risk, or the risk of failure and rejection?

If I feel emotional dysregulation, can I stand to feel it for a few moments before turning to my coping mechanisms—television, social media, games, drugs, alcohol, food?

If I accept the suffering in front of me rather than avoiding it, what might I stand to gain? What kind of person might I become by experiencing suffering, rather than avoiding it?