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I’ve been thinking about babies lately. Not for the reasons you might think, but because they’ve helped me understand something about being human. Babies experience discomfort. They get hungry. They get cold. They get tired. Their bellies hurt. They want to be held. And when they’re uncomfortable, they let you know it—loudly. But a baby doesn’t lie awake thinking: Why does this always happen to me? What if this never gets better? What if something is wrong with me? Why can everyone else handle this when I can’t? What if I’m always going to feel this way? They experience the discomfort. We experience the discomfort and then tell ourselves a story about it. And I think somewhere in that space between what is happening and the story we create about what is happening, discomfort can become suffering. Discomfort and Suffering Are Not the Same Thing This distinction has been explored in Buddhist philosophy for thousands of years. Buddhism doesn’t teach that we’re somehow supposed to avoid pain. Quite the opposite. Life contains pain. Bodies hurt. People die. Relationships end. People disappoint us. We lose things we love. We don’t always get what we want. We age. We get sick. Things change when we desperately want them to remain the same. That’s part of being alive. There is a well-known saying that captures an idea often associated with Buddhist philosophy: “Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.” I think that can sound almost harsh when you first hear it. Because if you’ve experienced heartbreak, grief, trauma, illness, betrayal, or loss, suffering certainly doesn’t feel optional. And I don’t think the point is that we can simply decide not to hurt. Pain is part of the human experience. Buddhist philosophy doesn’t ask us to pretend otherwise. In fact, the recognition of dukkha—often translated as suffering, dissatisfaction, or unease—is at the very heart of Buddhist teaching. Life changes. We lose people. Bodies age. Relationships change. Things don’t always go according to plan. We experience things we don’t want, and we lose things we desperately want to keep. That’s the pain of being human. But Buddhist philosophy also asks us to look at what happens after the pain arrives. We resist it. We cling to what we wish were happening instead. We desperately want reality to be different from what it is. We replay what happened. We predict what will happen next. We judge ourselves for feeling the way we feel. We attach stories to the experience: This shouldn’t be happening. I can’t handle this. I’ll never be okay again. Why does this always happen to me? Something must be wrong with me. And now we’re no longer experiencing only the original pain. We’re experiencing the pain plus everything our mind has built around it. What Does “Suffering Is Optional” Really Mean? Pain is inevitable. We are human. We are going to experience loss, heartbreak, disappointment, illness, fear, grief, change, and moments that simply hurt. We cannot control everything that happens to us, and no amount of healing or spiritual growth will give us a life completely free from pain. But suffering? That’s where things get more complicated. Maybe optional doesn’t mean we consciously choose whether or not to suffer. Most of us aren’t consciously choosing it at all. Maybe it means that some of our suffering is created subconsciously through our resistance, attachment, fear, judgment, and the stories we continue telling ourselves about what happened. And if some of our suffering is created there, then perhaps some of it can also be released there. There is another Buddhist teaching that illustrates this beautifully: the two arrows. The first arrow is the pain life gives us. The second arrow is the suffering we add ourselves. And I keep thinking about that. Because I shoot myself with the second arrow all the time. I think most of us do. We Don’t Consciously Choose Suffering I want to be really clear about this. When I say that we sometimes participate in our own suffering, I don’t mean that someone wakes up in the morning and thinks: You know what sounds great today? Misery. And I certainly don’t mean that someone caused their trauma, abuse, illness, loss, or whatever painful thing happened to them. That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about the subconscious ways we participate in our own suffering after something painful happens. Someone says something hurtful to me. That’s the first arrow. Then I replay the conversation for three days. I imagine what I should have said. I wonder what they think about me. I tell myself they don’t respect me. Then I remember another time they hurt me. Then another. Then I imagine what they’ll say the next time I see them. The original conversation lasted five minutes. I’ve now lived it for three days. That’s the second arrow. And I know that pattern because I’ve lived it—repeatedly. Sometimes Suffering Sounds Like Resistance This shouldn’t be happening. They shouldn’t have done that. I shouldn’t feel this way. My life should look different by now. Sometimes it sounds like fear: What if this never changes? Sometimes it sounds like shame: Why am I like this? Sometimes it sounds like comparison: Everyone else seems to have figured this out. Sometimes it sounds like attachment: I cannot be okay unless this person stays. I cannot be happy unless I have this amount of money. I cannot feel successful unless my life looks this particular way. And sometimes suffering looks like trying desperately to control something that was never ours to control. The discomfort may be real. The grief may be real. The fear may be real. The heartbreak may be very, very real. But then the human mind gets involved. And we can turn one painful moment into a thousand painful moments. This Doesn’t Mean We Should Stop Feeling Actually, I think it’s the opposite. Avoiding discomfort can create its own kind of suffering. We numb. We distract ourselves. We stay busy. We scroll. We overwork. We overthink. We pretend we’re fine. We spiritually bypass what hurts by trying to turn everything into a lesson before we’ve even allowed ourselves to feel it. But maybe the answer isn’t escaping discomfort. Maybe it’s learning how to experience discomfort without immediately building a home inside it. Feel the sadness. Feel the anger. Feel the disappointment. Feel the fear. Let your body experience what is actually here. Then notice what your mind begins adding. That’s the practice I’m becoming interested in. Not: How do I make sure nothing uncomfortable ever happens to me? Because that’s impossible. But: How do I stop turning every uncomfortable experience into a story about who I am, what my life means, or what will happen next? That’s different. Maybe Babies Know Something We’ve Forgotten A baby can be absolutely devastated because they’re hungry. Then you feed them. And five minutes later, they’re staring at the ceiling fan like it’s the greatest thing humanity has ever invented. There’s something beautiful about that. The discomfort came. They experienced it fully. Their need was met. And the moment passed. They haven’t learned to carry yesterday into today yet. We have. Obviously, adult life is infinitely more complicated than a baby’s hunger. Some experiences leave real wounds. Trauma can change the nervous system. Grief doesn’t disappear because we decide to “let it go.” There are experiences that take years to process. There are things we may carry with us for the rest of our lives. But carrying something isn’t necessarily the same thing as suffering inside of it forever. And I still wonder if there’s something we can learn from the distinction. Pain asks to be felt. Suffering often asks to be believed. Maybe that’s part of healing: learning to recognize the difference. Learning to ask: What is actually happening right now? And then: What am I adding to it? Because perhaps freedom isn’t a life without discomfort. Maybe freedom is learning that discomfort can move through us without becoming the story of our lives. The first arrow may not always be ours to choose. But maybe, with awareness and practice, we can slowly learn to stop firing the second one. And maybe that’s what “suffering is optional” is really asking us to consider.

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