I watched a YouTube video where a Catholic nun started to talk about how suffering is required in life. I said BS and switched to another video
.Growing up Catholic I know the story. Suffering is part of being spiritual, and you can’t avoid it. You can’t avoid pain and difficulties in life, but suffering is another level. Suffering is when you extend what you can’t avoid and seek it.
Lets say I hit my finger with a hammer accidently when doing construction. I suffer and I feel pain. Have I learned any spiritual lesson from that? Not particularly. Hammers can slip or cause problems for any number of reasons outside of your conscious control. It is arrogant to think we can control our destiny and our life experience.
Now what religious people like to say is that suffering is required and that only in pain will you achieve salvation. They quote the bible in which it says that children will be born in suffering, and that this is required. There are Purtain sayings like “Men may pay and men may pray, but they pay every pleasure with a pain.”
The religious community seems to enjoy making people suffer, and I think this is some deep rooted need to feel worthy. I think that when people think they have suffered, that somehow they are better than people who don’t suffer. I think we have fetishized suffering and people often say things when they are older like “In my day, we had to walk uphill both ways.” People think that because they suffered, other people have to suffer.
That my friends is grade A BS! If you love someone, you don’t want them to suffer. You want them to avoid the pain you went through, and you want that for everyone.
We can suffer and the suffering can stop with us. We don’t have to cause other people to suffer in the present and future just because we did. There is no merit badge in suffering. No one is going to pin a button on our chest if we get to heaven that says “Henry suffered the most in his family.” There is no purpose to suffering other than to create empathy, and there is a point where suffering breaks down and destroys peoples ability to cope with it.
The people who want others to suffer haven’t healed their own pain. They haven’t seen that pain and suffering don’t need to be constant. They haven’t experienced the love, joy and happiness that comes when you can love yourself and others. When you don’t need to punish them but let the consequences of their actions happen.
The more you try to make others suffer, the more you will end up suffering. Perhaps not today, but you can’t avoid the consequences of your actions. This is not a religious saying, but when you hurt your fellow man you won’t have the kind of relationships that you could have had with them. Love is a gift that requires kindness, forgivers, patience and hope. Suffering and pain will kill love.