On Suffering
This has been a time of great suffering. Will we come out of it better and wiser, or bitter and pessimistic? It depends on how we cope.
“I do not believe that sheer suffering teaches. If suffering alone taught, all the world would be wise, since everyone suffers. To suffering must be added mourning, understanding, patience, love, openness, and the willingness to remain vulnerable.”
Anne Morrow Lindbergh wrote those words in 1955. They are deeply relevant today. The past year has been one of suffering as we’ve faced the multifaceted devastation of the pandemic. Millions have suffered health problems or paid the ultimate price, millions more have suffered economically, and virtually everyone has suffered the challenges of isolation, fear, and uncertainty. Even if the growing number of vaccines and doses provide a sense of hope that the next year can be better, the recovery will take some time and will be uneven across countries. So we’re probably in for some more suffering, collectively speaking.
As we keep our eye on the collective fallout of these hard times, it’s important to ask ourselves two deeply personal questions: Has this suffering taught us anything valuable? How are we different as a result of what we have experienced?
The words of Anne Morrow Lindbergh contain a crucial warning and a profound lesson as we consider those questions.
The warning is that suffering by itself won’t automatically make us better and wiser. A common, “rational” outcome of suffering is bitterness and pessimism. Life has a way of inflicting challenges arising from things that aren’t our own fault, like a pandemic, a chronic disease, the death of a loved one, or the pain inflicted by someone else’s mistreatment. That type of suffering is 100% unfair. The natural response to unfairness is to push back and complain. There’s nothing wrong with that kind of reaction to the tragedies of life. But permanently remaining in that state is dangerous because it leads us to become obsessed with the question of “why did this happen to me?” (or my loved one). That’s an important question, but my experience is that there usually isn’t a satisfying answer to it.
What I’m trying to say here can be easily misunderstood. I am not advocating for passive acceptance of injustice, or for immunity for those who harm others in serious ways, or anything of the sort. But I am humbly suggesting that when facing truly exogenous, unfair challenges in life, there comes a point when we may need to accept that the answer to “why did this happen to me?” will not be satisfying nor help us move forward. Some things in life, hopefully not many, are maddeningly unyielding. This has been the hardest truth for me to accept when facing some of my deepest challenges.
Anne Lindbergh’s own life offers an important lesson in this regard, which she learned from a harrowing personal experience. Anne was the wife of Charles Lindbergh, the famous aviator. The two are pictured below as a young couple. They were bonafide celebrities in the first half of the 1900’s. They seemed to have it all: wealth, esteem, popularity. And then tragedy struck when, in March 1932, their 20-month-old son Charles Jr. was kidnapped and eventually found dead about two months later. The case made waves in the media. Scores of people were involved in the search for the body, and millions followed the trial and conviction of the kidnapper.
I won’t try to speculate about what Anne and Charles must have felt through the process. But just knowing this little bit of the story provides a powerful meaning to Anne’s words (quoted at the beginning of this article). She couldn’t do anything to bring her child back. It’s not hard to imagine the anger and hatred she might have felt for the person who took her baby boy. It might have been easy for her to dwell on the grief forever. But I believe she revealed something of the process that carried her to the other side by suggesting that she had to exercise “mourning, understanding, patience, love, openness, and the willingness to remain vulnerable.”
The profound lesson in this story is that, at some point, we have to move on from “why did this happen to me?” to a much more productive question: “What can I learn from this experience?” The list of qualities suggested by Anne Lindbergh offers a path to being able to find the answer.
But those qualities are not easy to develop for the type A, problem-solving people most likely to be reading (or writing) this newsletter. Because those aren’t problem-solving skills. They are coping skills! And coping is different from solving. Coping requires the maturity to accept what cannot change, demands the emotional work involved in processing unpleasant feelings, and takes us in directions we wish we didn’t have to go. But it is the only way out of our deepest suffering.
Without taking anything away from Anne’s list of coping skills, I’d like to add one more that has helped me through my darkest moments: helping someone else who’s also suffering. Engaging in acts of kindness and service to others while we ourselves suffer is a most unnatural act, going against all our instincts during hard times. But it’s powerful medicine because it activates all the other qualities advocated by Anne Morrow Lindbergh. It reminds us that there are others out there who are also struggling, and in helping them we exercise the muscles that allow us to love, be open, develop understanding, and remain vulnerable.
Once again, what I’m saying here can easily be misunderstood. I’m not making light of the profound sadness and helplessness that accompanies suffering, which makes it hard to turn to others in hard times. Nor am I suggesting that overcoming challenges is just a matter of applying a magic formula that involves checking off a list of other-serving attributes. The old adage that time heals all wounds has much truth to it, so there are no shortcuts.
But time by itself will not heal our wounds. There’s a certain amount of work and intentionality about how we suffer that makes the difference between ending up wiser vs. ending up bitter. This is one the great challenges we have as a global society as we face the long-term challenges of this pandemic.
I’d like to finish on a hopeful note. The picture below is also of Anne Morrow Lindbergh, though by now she was older than in the first picture and years had passed since the tragedy of losing her son. You can see some wrinkles around her eyes, a product of aging and hard experience. But I love the expression in those eyes: there’s real joy in them and in her smile. Anne was marked but not defined by her loss because she did learn something from her suffering. So can we, and the result will be an abiding sense of joy and inner peace despite our struggles.
Postscript: I have emphasized Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s ability to overcome her tragic loss. I’m aware of the controversy surrounding Anne because of her association with Charles and his sympathy for some aspects of the Nazi cause. My praise of Anne’s approach to handling tragedy is in no way a blanket endorsement of all aspects of her or her husband’s lives, particularly any reprehensible political views.
I agree completely. There is great power in being selfless although this is a most challenging skill. This year has contributed to many feeling lonely and isolated as we've been physically separated, but as we come out of this we will have increasing opportunities to reconnect. As you mentioned, the danger in life is drinking from the bitter cup and allowing it to make us bitter ourselves. Bitterness and anger can lead to isolation even when surrounded by throngs of people. But as we look outward and truly see and serve those around us, even when we may be suffering ourselves, we will make connections and experience more joy in those relationships. Thank you for your thoughts. Great message.