Suffering Does Not Make You A Better Person
All my pain will be rewarded. Life will put everything in place, especially the people who have betrayed me. I have suffered because that is how I will be rewarded one fine day. I may not enjoy life now, but one day the chance will come, for the universe and God know all about the bad things that have happened. Suffering is useful, because good people suffer and it is they who become winners in the end.
Does the paragraph above sound familiar? It is part of a public debate that has been repeated for years. It is so popular that I’m sure everyone felt attracted to it at some point, or even adopted it as their own point of view. It is the belief that happiness will be a reward for your suffering, not for your kind and proactive actions. It is the emotional legacy of our roots. Good people suffer, for themselves and others.
In the field of clinical psychology, there are a large number of depressed patients who are influenced by this irrational perception in everything they do. This is known as the “delusion of heavenly reward”, which is the belief that your good deeds will be rewarded by a magical and irrational party.
Do not wait for opportunities; create them, take advantage of them and make the most of them. This requires perseverance, determination and determination. In life, you have to set boundaries for the abuse others are exposing you to and that you are exposing yourself to.
Pain and discouragement are a part of life, and accepting them as such will improve your emotional health. You will know how to handle and confront them so that they do not become chronic and dysfunctional. But sometimes we embrace suffering as an authentic part of life.
We are content to complain and put on the sacrificial cardigan because we believe that life has not fulfilled the rule of reciprocity. We give a straight right and life responds with a straight right. As if life is under the graces of our desires, as if life were not a source of unpredictable and arbitrary events with their own illegible laws.
If karma were more powerful than our own just and correct actions, people who constantly cause harm and manipulation would suffer as much as the affected people, and not the exact opposite. You just have to look around to notice that the world is far from fair, far from rewarding for the suffering people. So how should we act then?
Thinking that life will give you good things you need and deserve if you suffer is like believing that you can buy things for paper if you call it money. This is a naive and destructive belief we force on ourselves, as if suffering were a blessing.
Many people get nervous when things are calm and going really well. They are in a constant state of alertness and dissatisfaction, as if this attitude would bring more benefits. As if constant thoughts of the bad things that could happen would lead to greater happiness in the future.
This systematic perspective in psychology analyzes how deeply ingrained this way of thinking and acting is. Often its roots are buried in a message within the family. Punishment does not teach children anything unless it comes with a restorative or positive action.
Children should understand that in order to fix something you have done wrong, you must repair the damage you have caused or do something positive to compensate for it. Such compensation should be immediate and in line with the unwanted behavior. If they are simply punished for suffering, they will learn that the repair of the injury lies in enduring the suffering from a punishment. From a young age, we internalize that the correct thing is to suffer passively.
If you want something better in life, you should use strategies and abilities you already possess to get it. Sitting and waiting for the world to acknowledge your pain and reward you for it is misguided.
Depression is often based on the feeling of learned helplessness: you believe that nothing will improve no matter what you do because it has never done it before. It’s time to think about your previous strategies. Think about whether you had a passive attitude towards your problems and threw in the towel at the slightest sign of problems or if you actively confronted your problems.
Suffering tends to attract more suffering. It’s about paralysis. It weakens your immune system, causing you to lose energy to confront situations of real danger because you are constantly on the alert, distrustful and tense.
If you want to relieve or calm the inner pain you are feeling, do not wait to be rewarded just because you have been through a difficult time. If you want support, you have to go out and find it. Grief and inactivity are addictive. Stop suffering. It does not make you a better person, but only creates pain for you and your loved ones.
