Thursday, April 5, 2012

The Suffering Scale


         Growing in a healthy direction can give us a feeling of ease. But a common problem in this effort is the many attempts to increase the ease of happiness without decreasing the pain of suffering.  As simple as this may sound, many have a hard time facing the truth of their situations.  I presume the reason we do not face a truthful situation is because this choice brings about self-awareness.  This awareness as to the energy we allow to penetrate to our core to cause this suffering or “disease” (lack of ease).  If you ask people if they want a disease, they would most likely say “no.”  Yet, and still, if you tested them for a disease, and the results were positive, they would need to choose a direction to a solution with the following two choices: A) you can do your best to find your cure, or B) you can accept and live, die, or die as a result of your disease.  Which do you think they would choose? A or B?
          I hope most of us would choose A.  I know the starting point toward my own self-discovery was an honest effort towards happiness.  I had to question my personal make up, image, and character before I could look to others for their opinions.  At times, I had a hard time detaching the ideals of what others wanted me to be and how they were tapping into my honest feelings of what I can be and why.  After this honest assessment, I then started in the direction for a cure of ease rather than disease.
          The trap that many of us fall victim to is within our search for a cure. We feel as long as we keep piling on the happiness, then we will be happier.  In our present day, we can see this piling of happiness within our material efforts. Many people buy one thing after the next, visit place after place, consuming and consuming, hoping for an increase in their happiness.  Eventually, the result of these actions is usually short-lived feelings of happiness. And these feelings get shorter and shorter the more and more we consume until, eventually, the short-lived happiness fades.
          As time passes, people assume they are making efforts towards happiness, although the disease continues to grow.  Nothing has been done to reduce the suffering. 
A spoonful of happiness today
will not cure the disease of suffering which has accumulated over time.

          Today, I feel true happiness starts with finding the essence of a given situation.  As I dig deeper and analyze the true essences of both happiness and suffering, I feel they accomplish the same goal. They simply remind us that we are still alive. The only difference is that one provides an interpretation of discomfort and the other of comfort.

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