Why do we suffer?

Why Do We Suffer ?

People usually search for ways to decrease their sufferings. Some resort to soul searching, some take daily dosage of motivations, while some other seek motivation and relief from meditations, hobbies and others. But like we solve each problem by finding out its root, for solving suffering, we need to get to the roots of why do we suffer. Because if we don't understand the causes, all the emotional motivations and plannings end up being worthless.

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What is suffering?

In Latin, the word Suffering consists of Sub (below) and Ferre (to bear). Sorrow is a feeling of deep distress caused by loss, disappointment, or other misfortune suffered by oneself or others.

"Suffering is the Pandora box of unpleasant feelings including frustration, sorrow, fear, anxiety, depression and others."

We all suffer, everyday, every point of time. From peer pressure to break up, from loss of job to get diagnosed with terminal illness, sufferings are everywhere.

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Reasons of suffering:

You know your sufferings very well. Most of the people relive and go on with different chronic sufferings. But did u know that suffering is in our genes? It is gifted to the animal kingdom by nature to Survive.

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7 million years ago, when we lived in the forests it was more important to avoid a tiger than eating a cherry lazily. There were so many dangers in each and every step that we needed to focus on Negative Experiences to stay Alive . So, in Hippocampus , the memory center of our brain, Negative feelings has become high priority storage material. That's why we need 5 positive interactions to overcome a single negative interaction. So you must realize at this point; how much our brain is evolved to store negative information and stress than to store happiness .

Even if you try to avoid suffering, we become anxious as our brain continues to scan the situation for further threats ! And you get withdrawn from reality ,start overthinking, imagine problems and exaggerate future obstacles.

But never forget ..under the skin of a 21st century human, our brain still operates like a caveman with a bolder in his hand. We value self-worth and get ashamed using the same neural circuit a lizard uses to find food & hide under the rock.

The tools of sufferings:

We use 6 tools to intensify our sufferings -

1. Greed

2. Hatred

3. Delusion

4. Separation

5. Stability 

6. Simulation

and using those tools we blindly react to bring unavoidable sufferings in our life.

Conclusion:

Fools try to escape from sufferings but a wiser person tries to deal with his/her reactions. Perk of being an advanced species is that we can actually control our brain and willfully change our life goals unlike our fellow species of animals who do not have the options. Yes..you can make your own neural circuits by some techniques and modify your brain to handle your life-chaos brilliantly ! The stepping stone of doing that is acknowledgement of the problems we have fundamentally built in ourselves. Now that we understand why we suffer, we will show the path of modifying ourselves to handle situations better in future posts. Until then happy learning!