Why You Suffer

Getting to the heart of your suffering.

The long and short of it is this: you suffer because you believe life should be different from how it is.

Freedom from suffering comes when you fully meet life exactly as it is—your shortcomings, your emotions, your experiences, all of it.

This doesn’t mean bypassing challenges. If you’re in an abusive relationship, for example, facing reality means acknowledging the truth: you believe your partner should be different, that they’ll change someday. Or perhaps you believe you will change enough to finally earn their kindness. But meeting life honestly means responding to what is, not what you wish it to be. If something is within your power to change, change it. If it’s not, how can you still find joy right now?

We like to believe we control life, but life has been unfolding long before we arrived. You didn’t choose where you were born, the language you speak, or the beliefs that shaped you. Even your preferences—music, relationships, clothing, fears—are echoes of the world you grew up in. You think in a language you did not invent. So whose thoughts are you really thinking? You are both an individual and an inseparable part of humanity itself.

This isn’t about running from life or waiting for a better future. This is your life. You can either meet it as it is and respond in the most truthful, loving way possible, or you can reject it and chase an imagined “better” tomorrow.

But life isn’t waiting. It’s happening, right now. The good, the bad, the ugly—it’s all part of the experience. And the more you believe happiness exists somewhere in the future, the more you miss the point entirely. It’s all part of the dance.

As Alan Watts says, “The meaning and purpose of dancing is the dance”.