We all experience serious challenges and difficulties on our path through life. These can vary in intensity but the question around suffering remains the same. This is “How do we deal with what we are faced with?”
Viktor Frankl, a survivor of a Jewish extermination camp during World War 2, came to a conclusion that suffering is a call to meaning. Our task is to stretch ourselves towards finding lessons in our suffering and dealing with them without holding deep resentment and bitterness inside. This is a huge challenge but the truth is that we can only grow through painful experiences.
If someone were to ask me whether I would like to “rewind” my past suffering, I would answer with a firm “no.” In Freckles, written by Gene Stratton Porter, he says “we never know the timber of a man’s soul until something cuts him deeply and brings the grain out strong.”
Practical exercise:
Write down difficult life challenges you have experienced. Try to isolate the meaning you managed to find in it. Write down characteristics you were challenged to develop through this. “Courage” is a good example.
