Life is Suffering, Smile
Hero Academia’s All Might
Want to be healthy? Quit shoveling down pints of Häagen-Dazs like it's your nightcap.
Want a healthy relationship? Build yourself into someone who deserves one.
Want more freedom? Burn your desires.
Want to develop your character? Seek suffering.
Your mom was on to something when she told you, “Everything good requires sacrifice.” That was only part of the truth, though, and your mom knew it. She just didn’t have the heart to tell you the rest.
Well, fortunately for you, my heart is much smaller and far colder than your mother’s ever was, so I have no problem telling you what she should have long ago:
Life is suffering.
If you disagree, keep reading. I wrote this for you.
I learned this lesson myself not so long ago. How, you ask?
Did my life take a wrong turn? Did I end up unemployed, living out of an apartment the size of your dad’s shoe?
Well, yes, actually, but that’s not how I came to realize suffering was an integral part of existence.
That lesson came to me after returning to the States from traveling.
I remember watching an old lady launch a soap-opera-worthy rant on a defenseless teenage barista because he had already run out of oat milk.
How dare he!
Later, another patron became hysterical over the Wi-Fi not being “up to co-working standard.”
Brother, this isn’t WeWork. This is Montana Mud Roasters.
Then at the gym, an old acquaintance said eating enough protein to build muscle was nearly impossible for him. To use his own words, “It’s the hardest part of my day.”
The greatest and most frequent complaint I heard was about how terrible the living conditions were in America. Everyone wanted to get out to a new and better place. Few ever stopped to acknowledge that simply being able to imagine that possibility, the idea of leaving on your volition and believing you could do it, was a unique trait of the American mindset. A gift made possible by that blue passport from the country they hated.
These experiences began to piss me off.
I’d just come back from over a year of traversing through developing countries where the majority lived hand to mouth, and here Chad was, greased up in his muscle shirt, telling me he was upset about the extra rib-eye he had to choke down every night.
Initially, I thought this was all due to a lack of perspective. Besides his fraternity trip to Cancun, old Chad never ventured outside the country, let alone to the other side of the city. Maybe that’s why he didn’t get it?
But I was wrong.
I knew I was wrong because after a few months at home, I started to act like Chad, complaining about things like not being able to find certified organic food and slow traffic. Meanwhile, I was wolfing down a $15 burger in my air-conditioned car listening to some podcaster spiel on about his cold plunge protocol (another form of suffering reserved for those who can afford it).
So perspective wasn’t the problem. The problem was one rooted in a frictionless state.
Free from immediate struggles, I created my own.
This is the human condition. This is why life is suffering. Even when you have it all, especially when you have it all, you can count on yourself to figure out ways to make life harder. Self-sabotage is a uniquely human trait.
“Shower upon him every earthly blessing, drown him in a sea of happiness, so that nothing but bubbles of bliss can be seen on the surface, give him economic prosperity such that he should have nothing else to do but sleep, eat cakes and busy himself with the continuation of his species, and even out of sheer ingratitude, sheer spite, man would play some nasty trick, simply in order to prove to himself — as though that were so necessary — that man are still man and not the keys of a piano, which the laws of nature threaten to control so completely that soon one will be able to desire nothing but by the calendar.”
–Dostoevsky,
(Notes from Underground & The Grand Inquisitor)
Humans will go to infinite lengths to ensure they undergo some form of suffering.
The question is, what do you do when you realize that?
You have three options:
Ignore the truth and dwell in the comfortable fog of ignorance.
Accept the truth and succumb to despair.
Accept the truth and smile.
The first choice promises happiness. The same shallow and fleeting happiness that a mutt feels after chewing on throwaway scraps.
The second choice leads to a state of ceaseless torment, one in which you curse the world for your pain and suffering. This seems like a good definition of hell.
The final option is the hardest. It calls for faith, humility, and grit. It doesn’t promise much, except for the chance to be able to look in the mirror and recognize one of the few who didn’t give in. One of the courageous, the brave who fought the good fight. One who found satisfaction in the trenches of life. In the dust, the heartache, the daily drudgery, it was you who were able to lend a hand to those in need. You were the lighthouse amidst the storm because you chose not to cower. When others fled, you stood tall. I wonder if you knew it would cost you? Did you know the longer you continued down this path, the more comfort, normalcy, and happiness you sacrificed? Of course you did. And yet, you doubled down. Those rewards held no value in your eyes. You wanted purpose, strength, authenticity, and you knew that like the purification of gold, those treasures would only reveal themselves after plunging willingly into the furnace of suffering. You are one of the few. At least today. Tomorrow you will be forced to choose your side again.
For the sake of the rest of us, I pray you continue to fight. Forge ahead while you still can remember why you have to.
And when times turn for the worse, don’t forget to hold fast to the last of your human freedoms: the freedom to choose your own attitude, the freedom to smile amidst the suffering.
Cue: Fight the Good Fight by Triumph.