The usefulness of suffering

Most of our suffering is useless. Eckhart Tolle wrote a line in Stillness Speaks that I often think of: “Suffering is necessary until you realize it is unnecessary.” He is of course referring to the mental suffering that so many of us go through every day. The constant mental chatter that takes away our attention from the present to the voice that’s never satisfied. You see, we all want to live a happy and interesting life. We want to feel that we’re in control of our destiny. We want to enjoy the time we have on this planet. Isn’t that a weird goal? It wasn’t that long ago that our species was just focused on survival. We didn’t have time to suffer in imagination. But that’s the topic of another article. The truth is that we can have a pretty good life. The thing is, you have to go through a lot of suffering to make that happen. The two kinds of suffering There are two kinds of suffering, and they feel identical from the inside. The first kind is useful. It comes from real friction…