Is suffering overrated?
This conversation started in early 2020.
We were working with a team in Cancun. It was a diverse group, part of a mining organization, that the executive leadership group had brought together for their first “all team” gathering. As I best recall, someone was complaining about something or some condition they felt they had to put up with, when one of the executives humorously commented, “remember, suffering is optional!”
That comment really struck a chord with me. So many years of working with teams or coaching executives on moving from victim to ownership, this simple truth had never occurred to me this way. It is elegant in its simplicity.
While it may be elegant in its simplicity, there seems to be nothing simple in curbing our propensity to suffering, worry, and angst. Optional also means choice.
Look, I appreciate that things happen to us that cause us grief, such as tragic loss. I am really speaking more to the everyday situations over which we fret, stir, worry, etc. Those frequent spates of energy drain, that we participate in regularly.
Would we choose this consciously? I think not! However, they persist as unconscious reactions. It’s not the particular form of suffering that is unconscious. No… we are aware of that. It’s the driver, cloaked by our reaction. And, it keeps us removed from choice awareness.
We are driven to react to things in particular ways, the source of which is not present for us, so our access to choice is buried in the shadows.
Marlene, our daughters, and I were celebrating Mother’s Day and at some point the conversation migrated into our diverse individual take on current events, both here and abroad. As the drum of our personal beliefs started escalating we began talking, loudly, over each other. It occurred to me that our current beliefs seem to run parallel to whatever information stream we are currently tuned into.
For example, if you listen to Fox News, you are likely going to see the world through a conservative ideological lens. If you are partial to Huffpost, it’s a lens on the other end of the spectrum. However, I’m pretty sure we find information sources that fit our worldview, rather than the other way around. I do know, from personal experience, that I have changed a lot of my opinions, and even biases, by creating new sources of input.
Human Beings are a construct of a lifetime of beliefs, anchored by the particular flavor of our domestication, how we were raised, family rituals, peer group pressure, etc.
Ontology, the study of the nature of being, relates to this. Who are we being? Our beliefs, both conscious and unconscious, are reflected in our behavior, which become the drivers of how well we perform. If I want to impact my performance, then behavior is key, and my portal to that is an introspection of my beliefs and choices, especially the unconscious ones. Every action is a choice, most are just unconscious.
Would expanded consciousness give us better choices?
In looking into ontology, I came across a piece about the German philosopher Nietzsche and his formula for human greatness, Amor Fati, Latin for “a love of fate.” He is saying that there is a sameness in the past, present, and future, and rather than bear the burden of what we think is necessary, love it.
I can suffer life’s uncertainties or I can choose to embrace them... Amor Fati. Both are ways of being. Both are a choice. The human default is to suffer, it takes awareness to make a conscious choice. Amor Fati is not only a choice in action, it is also a choice to appreciate the power of the choice. Neither is right, they just give us different results.
Suffering is optional; your choice.
Raising consciousness is a deliberate act; we know the path.
Cheers, and have a great week,
Fundamental #1: ACT WITH INTEGRITY
Demonstrate doing the right thing in all your actions and all your decisions, especially when no one is looking. Always tell the truth. Acknowledge and own your mistakes, clean them up and make appropriate corrections.
