The inevitability of
hardships
The first thing I want
to talk about is the fact that pain and hardships are inevitable.
No one can escape them. Every single one of us, at some point in our life, will
experience pain, suffering and hardships of some form or another.
My goal in saying this
is not to depress you. Rather my goal is to inspire you. How
is this inspiring you might ask? Well it is simple. Being aware of the fact
that you WILL experience suffering is a cause for hope because, unlike many
other people, you now have a chance to prepare for it. And people who prepare
are never as badly affected as those who don’t.
Suffering, pain and hardships are inevitable.
Make sure your preparation for them is also just as inevitable. This is the
most important step.
How to deal with pain
and hardships in your life
The tips that I am about to give you come from
two places, my own personal experience and the experiences of history’s
greatest masters. Sometimes it is better to hear some pithy and real tips as
opposed to some dry and theoretical ones. I will try, therefore, to keep these
as practical as possible.
Realize that it is your
hardships that make you better
Picture this. You are in the center of the Indian desert. You are just out of high school; young, naive and egotistical. You are on a bit of a spiritual journey but at the same time looking for adventure. And then after just arriving in a place miles from anywhere you wake up in the middle of the night vomiting, convulsing and shaking. You are days from a hospital and you are really sick. Things start to look bleak.
Picture this. You are in the center of the Indian desert. You are just out of high school; young, naive and egotistical. You are on a bit of a spiritual journey but at the same time looking for adventure. And then after just arriving in a place miles from anywhere you wake up in the middle of the night vomiting, convulsing and shaking. You are days from a hospital and you are really sick. Things start to look bleak.
That is the situation I
found myself many times in my life. Let me share with your this story
John was in India in the
desert and had eaten some poisonous food and for the next three days he lay in
bed sick as a dog. It didn’t matter what he did, nothing seemed to help. He
started to get quite frightened as he knew he was too sick to travel and there
were no doctors around. But then something amazing happened, he was
paid a visit by a very lovely Tibetan Lama. He came into john’s room and said
one thing and one thing only. John never ever forgot it as it had such a
profound impact on his life.
He said:
“I am not interested in how much money you have or what family you
belong to. I am interested in how you deal with hardships. That is the only
thing that matters. That defines your future.”
It is the truest thing anyone had ever said to John
about suffering and hardships. It is the hardships that define your character.
Everyone is charming and lovely when the birds are chirping and the flowers are
blooming but hardly anyone is compassionate, patient and loving when they are
sick, ill or under pressure. How you deal with hardships determines your
character.
If you want to learn to deal with pain and
hardship you need to realize that you have an amazing opportunity to grow as a
person. You can prove to yourself that you are strong. You can show yourself
that you have strength of character and will-power. The amazing thing about
hardships and pain is that they present you with a rare opportunity to grow
into a strong and decent human being.
Realize that pain and
hardships won’t last
There is a great truth in this universe that applies to everything. There is no corner of the world that it does not touch, no depth of the ocean that it does not find, no planet in space that it cannot reach. That truth applies to everyone and everything. That truth is impermanence. Nothing lasts.
There is a great truth in this universe that applies to everything. There is no corner of the world that it does not touch, no depth of the ocean that it does not find, no planet in space that it cannot reach. That truth applies to everyone and everything. That truth is impermanence. Nothing lasts.
We have heard it all before. What goes up must
come down. What comes together must eventually part. What is composite will
soon break. What is accumulated will one day be dispersed. Everything in our
universe is impermanent. Nothing can escape it.
As depressing as this
sounds it also has an upside. The next time you are going through some pain or
hardships you can remind yourself that it won’t last. You can look
at everything in history and feel secure in knowing that, no matter how bad
things seem now, the problems won’t last forever. What a wonderful thing! Like
all things, suffering is also impermanent.
Realize that you are not
alone
There is something very powerful about knowing that other people are going through what you are going through. Realizing that you are not alone is an extremely good way to deal with pain and hardships.
There is something very powerful about knowing that other people are going through what you are going through. Realizing that you are not alone is an extremely good way to deal with pain and hardships.
Let’s take the example of someone with severe
depression. Depression can make you feel pretty alone. In fact, 90% of the time
depression makes you feel so isolated and self-orientated that you don’t have a
thought about other people for long stretches of time. I have a lot of
experience dealing with this.
But when you open up to
the fact that you are not alone you get a boost of some really powerful strength.
You get a sense of community, of friendship, of companionship – even if you
haven’t met anyone else with the condition. Just knowing that there are other
people out there like you can really make you feel good.
The next step in this
idea is to realize that thousands of other people have gone through what you
are going through and come out the other end. They have made it
through and won. They haven’t died, lost hope or given up. They have faced the
very same thing as you (whatever it is) and they have come out the other end.
Never forget this.
