Illness, lack of sleep, stressful travel, flight delays, terrible toddlers…
Yesterday I had the most exhausting 24 hours I can remember in a while, which stretched me to the edge of my endurance.
But in modern life we so rarely suffer seriously:
- We can control the temperature of our environment & we have clothing suited to every weather.
- We have become incapable of tolerating even mild temperature fluctuations.
- We have unlimited variety and supply of food.
- Most of us don’t know what true hunger or thirst feels like, and suffer instead from overconsumption.
- We have a the entirety of the world’s entertainment in our pocket.
- We now interpret boredom as anxiety.
- We sleep every night on comfortable beds.
- We rarely go a single night without at least some sleep.
- We aren’t in danger of imminent attack or injury.
- For rare accidents, we have the most advanced healthcare in history available.
And so we don’t often have the chance to practice being uncomfortable, or to learn to tolerate pain.
You can use suffering as an opportunity to practice your grit and fortitude and a positive mindset.
When experiencing illness.
You have two choices available:
You can experience the suffering,
and wallow in it, thereby experiencing more suffering by giving it your entire focus.
Or your can accept the suffering.
Yes, its shit; Your tired, or sore or hungry or uncomfortable. But there’s nothing more you can do about it.
And you can still experience positive things amongst the suffering.
Even if those things are small, you can focus your attention on appreciating things which are good, thereby reducing your moment to moment suffering.
