Why Do We Suffer?

“Suffering is that things are not happening according to you.” ~Sathya Ji

Suffering is an unavoidable part of life, though we would all prefer that it wasn’t. Many of us are looking for a way to end needless suffering. But how do we free ourselves from a human condition that is both universal and inevitable? Why exactly do we suffer, and what can we do about it?

This week’s quote by Sathya Ji makes an interesting point, that suffering occurs when you don't get what you want. However, life is unpredictable, it rarely unfolds exactly the way you think it should. But suffering begins with the belief that what is happening should not be happening.

This doesn’t mean that painful experiences are insignificant or that the secret to happiness is to pretend that everything is fine when it's not. It's a recognition that suffering is not just the pain that you experience in the moment. Suffering is the ongoing struggle you create when your mind starts to argue with reality, stubbornly insisting that things should not have happened the way they did.

We believe that other people should always behave according to our expectations. We want the past to have happened differently and the future to arrive exactly as we planned. When reality refuses to cooperate with our demands, we feel frustrated. The more tightly we hold to our idea of how things should be, the more painful it becomes when they go in another direction.

Eliminating suffering does not mean you eliminate all uncomfortable feelings. It means you stop fighting against what is. As Eckhart Tolle once said, "Stress is caused by being here but wanting to be there." Once you accept where you are, the struggle ends and you regain all the energy that was being used to resist it. You may not always get what you want, but you can change your relationship with whatever happens. Inner peace begins when you stop demanding that reality follows your plan and learn to accept this moment as it is.