Suffering

The relationship we have with suffering predicates the outcome of nearly everything in our lives. If you're lucky enough to choose, you will suffer just enough on the right things, and get what you want out of life. What separates people from animals is our ability to suffer now, and benefit later. But just because you're suffering, doesn't mean that you will eventually benefit. This is because suffering itself is not inherently beneficial. We only grow if we can properly condition our responses to the negative stimuli at play. If there comes a point where things are too challenging to proceed, either your behavior is not sufficient, or you're just not ready. We are all capable of enduring massive struggle, and there is little separation between those who will rise, and those who will look for a way out.

[The Privilege of Suffering]

I promise this will not be a David Goggins kind of talk from me. I was moved to write today because my community faced the unexpected loss of suicide. You'd be hard pressed to find someone that hasn't been personally effected by the loss of a loved one resulting from suicide. Whenever something like suicide occurs, it's natural for people to try and bond together with their feelings of loss. Though I have faced a level of loss, I'm aware enough to know that I could have been affected much worse. Even the most privileged people can have their lives shattered by something like suicide, and thus I am privileged to not have faced this.

Suicide and mental health are among the most touchy subjects to talk about, especially if you're coming from a place of perceived privilege having not dealt with either. The last thing people want to hear is someone trying to project something they know nothing about, and I acknowledge this. But, when I see the way people around me have been hurt by something, I am compelled to understand it. The only way I can understand something is to relate it to the first principles I am familiar with in my own life. Because I’ve never struggled much with my mental health, I want to help others be the same.

We all face challenges in life. Obviously there are people who are exponentially better off than others, but I do not believe there is a correlation between mental health and socioeconomic background. If anything, those with less to worry about have more freedom to manufacture reasons to be miserable. If our environment doesn’t determine our mental well-being, then what does? How is it that rich white men can be perceived to be so privileged, but many still commit suicide? If privilege and happiness were correlated, our generation would be immensely happier than those that came before us. (“I would rather be a poor person in modern society than an aristocrat in 17th century France”). The privilege offered by new technology is always expanding, but if anything, we are becoming more mentally unstable. I believe it to be largely attributed to the mental framework we construct around suffering. New access to information gives us more avenues to suffer if we so choose. The internet gives us endless opportunities to be miserable, and it’s nearly impossible to escape. If we are not equipped with healthy mechanisms to process negative emotions, they will slowly take control.

The healthiest way to develop these mechanisms is through chosen suffering. We have to train our mind to see us a winner. The best way to boost self esteem is to overcome struggle. You want to build a reputation with yourself that demonstrates an ability to handle suffering. Give yourself manageable doses of suffering and you will build up a tolerance. If you lack this tolerance, and something bad happens, you will have no means to overcome that struggle and your self esteem takes a hit. Depression is marked by the inactivity of the body, the hyperactivity of emotions, and low levels of self efficacy. These things negatively compound if you allow them to.

If you want to avoid the suffering of mental health, you must choose something difficult to replace it. Though the construction of self esteem is necessary, it’s equally important to address the negative factors that arise. Something that continually causes people loss of peace is their desire for more. I will try to not sound too Buddhist here, but I really believe that the mark of success is to want nothing. A stoic monk that denounces all possessions is more successful than a millionaire CEO that is in a mad rush to acquire more, more, more. So long as we are measuring them on the level of unfulfilled wants. We all have desires, and all desire is is a contract we make with ourself to suffer until we get what we want. This leads to growth of course, but if we have too many outstanding contracts, we will begin to crumble internally. This once again indicates why privilege does not determine mental health.

[Desire is a Contract]

If you want to build a strong internal state, you must increase your ability to handle the pressure of suffering. It is also important to not introduce too many sources of suffering by having too many desires. We should all be very careful about introducing new desires. If you are unconsciously increasing what you want, your desires will get all tangled up in a big knot that can seem too difficult to untangle. Be careful and cognizant of your contracts to avoid this.

I have always believed traditional therapy to be useless for most people. Once you’ve covered the first few layers of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, you are adequately positioned to have a calm internal state, and shouldn’t need therapy. Therapy is only needed when you have allowed the existence of too many contracts, or contracts that are too difficult to satisfy. If for some reason I want to be a pro athlete, that is a very difficult task that dictates most of my decisions. I can’t also have desires to vacation, and have a vibrant social life, and party on the weekends, and eat whatever I want, etc. The key is to organize these contracts in a way that prioritizes expiration dates and minimizes contradictions. If I allow the combined payoff of smaller desires to outweigh one of my core goals, I will not succeed. This framework should be applied to craft a sense of priority, but also to create a calm internal state.

Priorities tend to offer clarity. This relates to suicide how exactly? I feel that it is safe to say suicide is a result of clouded judgement. If there was a video game that was way too difficult to enjoy playing, well then you can assume everyone would quit that game. Life might not always be fun, and there is certainly heterogeneity in people’s skill levels, but it is never worth quitting a game that you only get one life in. (I hope that I do not come off as insensitive by gamifying such a serious topic. I use analogies as a tool to help me communicate more clearly.) If life gets too hard, you have the obligation to improve your skill, or make the game easier by decreasing your desires. No matter how deep in the hole you may be with your behaviors, there is always time to take action. The longer you wait to take action, the easier it feels to give up. The slippery slope of mental illness requires you to drive a stake down on your bad behaviors, and take responsibility for things that may not be your fault.

“The price of regret is far heavier than the price of discipline”

“Effective people realize life is a video game, whereas everyone else sits back and acts like life is a movie”

“We suffer more often in silence than in reality” - Seneca