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adversary
August 2009 
Do you believe there is value in suffering?
Posted on Jan 11th, 2009
by 
Nece
Nece
This is in Response to the Questions and Reflections for January 11, 2009:
No pain no gain. I believe that there is inevitable pain whenever there are trials and adversity, however, misery which is self-inflicted is optional. I believe that there are two sort of trials and that is penalty adversity and growth adversity. Penalty adversity is simply that you did something knowing that it was wrong and that it was a transgression and hence you must endure the pain and the suffering for your choice. Where as growth adversity is simply life's challenges, suffering and growing pain that are completely unwarrented. I believe that it is through our suffering that we really learn and grow, it is through that pain that we learn our life lessons and how to better empathize with our fellowmen. And that most of the time, the right path to take, is the hard path to take, for nothing worth having is simply easily obtain. So yes there is value in our suffering, and it's about enduring the pain well, about embracing the truth and the lessons learn, and not so much about the end destination. Life is about the journey, and having hope and faith is about finding journey in the journey amidst the suffering.
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I see three types of suffering and value depends on our attitude:
1. We suffer because we are striving towards achievement. That’s sweet pain self imposed and certainly valuable.
2. We suffer because we’ve made a mistake. We could extract value only if we learn a lesson and manage to figure out how to avoid disastrous choices in the future.
3. We suffer from our stupidity (or from the stupidity of those near us) it has no value if we don’t extract knowledge from it. If that is the case we can suffer and suffer and that will only prove our own dumbness but don’t delude yourself that some imaginary value will accumulate somewhere, somehow.