"Whereas earlier sages, both Israelite and Greek, had counseled the avoidance of suffering as a condition of happiness- urging their followers to flee, scorn, or simply bear it like Job- Christ recommends suffering's active embrace...to seek happiness in sadness, pleasure in pain, joy in sorrow, ecstasy in death" (McMahon 83).
The question that occurred to me while reading this was: "Is it possible to find happiness while one is suffering, or does the existence of happiness truly rely on the nonexistence of suffering?"
The world we live in unfortunately is not and probably will not ever be completely devoid of suffering in one form or another. So in order to be happy, we are faced with two choices: to either avoid suffering altogether or to embrace it. Many philosophers we have studied have stressed the importance of ridding oneself of suffering- for example Cicero argues "the man of perfect virtue will be happy even under torture" because the "well-being of the happy man is completely impervious to the cruelest twists of fate" due to their lack of desires and, in consequence, lack of mental anguish (McMahon 55). Cicero basically asks us to simply ignore or overcome suffering- but Christ asks us to take suffering for what it is in its whole. Christ wants us to feel the pain, mental anguish, confusion, and hurt that exists in the world because He went through it all when He was on Earth, and in result this means feeling these sensations is how we can be closest to Him- to suffer for Christ is a privilege (Philippians 3:10). And all this suffering has the future reward of being granted eternal happiness in Heaven later on tied with it- obviously a great perk.
My hypothesis is that to embrace suffering is a much easier task than to rid oneself of it- because when I take into account how much sadness, awful things, desires I have, and the likes exist, I do not think I would ever be able to reach a mindset where I could totally ignore or avoid it all. I would say it is much more simple to suffer and find peace in the fact that I am not alone because Christ suffered as well, and that I will have happiness in Heaven one day. But that means I am not entirely happy in my existence- I am only bearing the sadness and finding a small calm in knowing I will have happiness one day. But maybe we are only meant to have this small bit of happiness in this life and must await full ecstasy for when we are in Heaven.
As for now, I am not totally happy (ha) with this answer, because I of course would want more happiness in this life than a small portion. And on another note, I don't know if it is better to simply embrace suffering because it is easier than trying to reach a mindset where I can avoid suffering.
"Whereas earlier sages, both Israelite and Greek, had counseled the avoidance of suffering as a condition of happiness- urging their followers to flee, scorn, or simply bear it like Job- Christ recommends suffering's active embrace...to seek happiness in sadness, pleasure in pain, joy in sorrow, ecstasy in death" (McMahon 83).
ReplyDeleteThe question that occurred to me while reading this was: "Is it possible to find happiness while one is suffering, or does the existence of happiness truly rely on the nonexistence of suffering?"
The world we live in unfortunately is not and probably will not ever be completely devoid of suffering in one form or another. So in order to be happy, we are faced with two choices: to either avoid suffering altogether or to embrace it. Many philosophers we have studied have stressed the importance of ridding oneself of suffering- for example Cicero argues "the man of perfect virtue will be happy even under torture" because the "well-being of the happy man is completely impervious to the cruelest twists of fate" due to their lack of desires and, in consequence, lack of mental anguish (McMahon 55). Cicero basically asks us to simply ignore or overcome suffering- but Christ asks us to take suffering for what it is in its whole. Christ wants us to feel the pain, mental anguish, confusion, and hurt that exists in the world because He went through it all when He was on Earth, and in result this means feeling these sensations is how we can be closest to Him- to suffer for Christ is a privilege (Philippians 3:10). And all this suffering has the future reward of being granted eternal happiness in Heaven later on tied with it- obviously a great perk.
My hypothesis is that to embrace suffering is a much easier task than to rid oneself of it- because when I take into account how much sadness, awful things, desires I have, and the likes exist, I do not think I would ever be able to reach a mindset where I could totally ignore or avoid it all. I would say it is much more simple to suffer and find peace in the fact that I am not alone because Christ suffered as well, and that I will have happiness in Heaven one day. But that means I am not entirely happy in my existence- I am only bearing the sadness and finding a small calm in knowing I will have happiness one day. But maybe we are only meant to have this small bit of happiness in this life and must await full ecstasy for when we are in Heaven.
As for now, I am not totally happy (ha) with this answer, because I of course would want more happiness in this life than a small portion. And on another note, I don't know if it is better to simply embrace suffering because it is easier than trying to reach a mindset where I can avoid suffering.