Suffering Does Not Make You A Better Person
All my pain will be rewarded. Life will put everyone in place, especially those who have betrayed me. I have to suffer because this is how I will be rewarded one day. Maybe I do not enjoy life now, but one day the opportunity will come, because the universe, or God, knows of all the bad things that have happened. Suffering is useful because good people suffer and it is they who win in the end.
Do the above sentences sound familiar to you? They are part of a public discussion that has been repeated for years. It’s so popular that I’m sure we’ll all been tempted by it at one time or another, or even used it as our own point of view. It is the belief that happiness will be a reward for your suffering, not for the kind and proactive actions you take. It is the emotional legacy of our Judeo-Christian roots. Good people suffer, for themselves and for others.
In clinical psychology, a large proportion of depressed patients are affected by this irrational idea in everything they do. This is known as Heaven’s Reward Fallacy, which is the belief that your good deeds will be rewarded by a magical and irrational agent.
Your actions are more powerful than “karma”
Do not wait for opportunities; create them, take advantage of them, and make the most of them. This requires determination, self-determination and firmness. In life, you must set boundaries for the abuse that others commit against you and that you inflict on yourself.
Pain and discouragement are a part of life, and accepting them as such will improve your emotional health. You will know how to deal with them and confront them so that they do not become chronic and dysfunctional. However , we sometimes adopt suffering as an authentic lifestyle.
We settle down to complain and behave like victims because we believe that life does not meet the principle of reciprocity. We give a hug, and life comes with a bang. As if life were at the mercy of our desires, as if life were not a source of unpredictable and random events with their own strange, incomprehensible laws.
If karma really were stronger than our own righteous actions, people who constantly caused harm and manipulated would suffer as much as those who suffered that harm, not the other way around. You just have to look around to notice that the world is far from fair, far from rewarding those who suffer. So, how should you act then?
Suffering does not necessarily make you stronger
To think that life will give you all the good things you need and deserve if you suffer is like thinking that you can buy things with paper if you call it money. This is a confused and destructive belief that we impose on ourselves, as if suffering were a blessing.
Many people get nervous when things are calm and going very well. They are trapped in a constant state of alertness and dissatisfaction, as if this attitude will give them several benefits. As if constantly thinking about the bad things that can happen will bring more happiness in the future.
The psychologist’s systemic perspective analyzes how profound this way of thinking is. The roots are often found in messages within the family. Punishment does not teach children anything if it is not accompanied by a restorative or positive practice.
The child should understand that in order to correct something they did wrong, they must repair the damage they caused or do something positive to compensate for it. Such compensation should be immediate and conditional on undesirable behavior. If they are simply punished just to make them suffer, they will learn that repairing the damage lies in the endurance of the suffering caused by the punishment. From a young age, we realize that passive suffering is the right thing to do.
Instead of punishing yourself with valuable actions
If you want something better in your life, use the strategies and abilities that you have to make it happen. Sitting and waiting for the world to recognize the pain and reward you for it is misunderstood.
Depression is often based on the feeling of learned helplessness: you think that nothing will improve no matter what you do, because it has never done it before. It’s time to think about your previous strategies. Think about whether you had a passive attitude to your problems and threw in the towel at the slightest uphill, or whether you actively confronted your problems.
Disorder tends to attract more disorders. It’s a matter of paralysis. It weakens your immune system, which thus loses the energy to face situations of real danger, because you are constantly in a state of alertness, mistrust and tension.
If you want to improve or heal the inner pain you are feeling, do not wait to be rewarded just because you went through a difficult time. If you want support, you have to go out and find it. Sadness and inactivity are addictive. Stop suffering. It does not make you a better person, it only creates pain for you and your loved ones.
