Can We Cease Suffering?

Here’s the truth and the answer.

This article was first published in Psychology Today

“What does it mean to be a human being? What is life all about? Why are we here?” he asked, but without waiting for a response. â€œWhy are we supposed to be here? How did we get here? And why do we have to be living a life that is so unpleasant and such a struggle?”

He paused and then resumed: “Is this what life all about? Is life supposed to be this hard? What’s the difference between these other folks who are making it and me? Those rich people, with a lot of money, born with a silver spoon in their mouth, why them, and why not me?”  

He now took a longer pause, just enough to catch his breath before proceeding and said: “What did I do to be born into this family? What sins did I commit to deserve to be born to an addict mother?”

“Why was I born mixed? Why was I not just either all white or all black? Now, where do I belong? No one accepts me except those I was smoking and using with. Now that I am sober, where do I belong? Who am I? What am I? Why am I even alive?”

At this point, he starts to look tearful, and he then continues: “I can see why so many people kill themselves. I used to think it was stupid, but when you think about it, when you become realistic, you realize that they are right in just ending it.”

This is an extract of a patient, “Mike,” receiving combined psychotherapy and  management. He had graduated from a specialized high school for gifted and talented students and received scholarships from three different Ivy League colleges. Mike had started college but had to leave to get treatment for substance use and mental health conditions. Now he is in recovery, back in college, working, and regularly attending his mental health services.

Almost 1 million people die by suicide each year.[1] That’s more than one person every 40 seconds, and for each person who dies, 20 persons attempt to die, which means one person attempts suicide every two seconds. Now, when accounting for confounding factors, the most common reason behind all forms of suicide, either attempted or completed, is “feeling depressed.”[2]  “Feeling depressed,” in turn, can be part of, or due to, various factors, one of which is related to where Mike was at that point in his life.

When people die by suicide or are contemplating it, several of the questions posed by Mike at the beginning of this article are their questions as well. Before considering suicide, they have attempted to find the answers to these questions, and have often engaged in behaviors that turned out to be detrimental to them, their loved ones, and society. At times, people turn to drugs and alcohol, or their symptoms of depression, anxiety, or OCD become more apparent.[3] Many seek treatment to get answers to their suffering.

At times, they explicitly pose similar questions; at other times, they are implicit, while still, they hardly know these are the types of questions they are asking. They know, deep inside, something is missing, something is not making sense, something is not clicking. They know internally that their self-concept is shaky, their sense of identity is confusing, and their sense of purpose is nonexistent.

Five major thought systems try to answer these questions and try to make sense of the world, our human race, and our existence. Philosophy, religion, and science started, while spirituality and metaphysics continued. Who’s right? Who has “the Truth”? 

Instead of asking who has the Truth, it is more beneficial to ask what the Truth is. Part of the answer to this question helps make it easier to recognize that the Truth is at the intersection of all our five major thought systems. In other words, the Truth is not in religion, spirituality, metaphysics, or philosophy alone. By the same token, the Truth is also not in science alone. And as the phrase goes, the great scientific truths of today are expected to be the great scientific lies of tomorrow. Yet these significant five thought systems have something in common among them, and that commonality is the Truth.

Now, the question is: Why is this important? To which we answer in the form of the following five questions:

1. Do we want to cease suffering?

2. Do we want to learn a new way to navigate the world?

3. Do we want to know aliveness, peace, freedom, authentic happiness, and authentic success?

4. Do we want to fully use our talents, skills, passion, and strength for our highest benefit and that of our loved ones and others?

5. Do we want to grow ourselves and help elevate ourselves to a new way of being in the world?

If you say “yes” to any of those five inquiries, it means the question of “What is the Truth?” is important to you. Answering this question in the most rigorous and accurate way possible is also of the utmost importance because it is fundamental to everything else we are and we do. The answer is also fundamental to something all of us are concerned with, and that is suffering.

Just like Mike, billions of individuals in the world are wondering why life is so hard. Like Mike, often enough, we find ourselves suffering as if this is indeed what life was all about.

Can we cease suffering?

This article introduces a series on Ending Suffering for All. Suffering has been with us since the dawn of time; therefore, it must sound preposterous to assume that we can end it. This would indeed be a logical way of thinking about it, except that such an assertion derives from the same type of thinking that created suffering, to begin with.

As Einstein said, “We cannot solve our problems with the same type of thinking that created it.”[4] This means nothing we can currently say about suffering would end up being helpful as long as we continue in the same type of thinking that has engendered it.

“What is that other type of thinking that will help us cease suffering, then?” you may ask. This series is about that different type of thinking and how to make the shift, harness it, and start navigating the world in a totally different way that not only ceases our suffering but the suffering of our loved ones and others. 

References

[1] “Suicide Data.” World Health Organization, World Health Organization, 27 Sept. 2019.

2] Suicide Risk and Protective Factors|Suicide|Violence Prevention|Injury Center|CDC. 3 Sept. 2019

[3] Rafnsson, Fjolvar Darri, Fridrik H. Jonsson, and Michael Windle. “Coping strategies, stressful life events, problem behaviors, and depressed affect.” Anxiety, Stress, and Coping 19.3 (2006): 241-257.

[4] Prensky, Marc. “Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants Part 1.” On the Horizon, vol. 9, no. 5, 2001, pp. 1–6., doi:10.1108/10748120110424816.