The fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself, says a famous quote. Is it true or is it not? What I can say from my own point of view, after a short analyze of other people including myself, there have been several times when I’ve seen people giving up in front of some situations because they were too afraid of failures. Either they thought they weren’t good enough to pass through them or they displayed arrogance, as they were conscious already of their own value and there wasn’t necessary for them to deal with new challenges. It is all about a choice: are you too afraid of suffering, so that you don’t want to take risks or don’t you care at all about consequences and you just want to live the moment?
I want to write first about the consequences of choosing the fear of suffering. The majority is accustomed to making this choice because of an unlucky situation from the past that has left sad memories. You all have passed through this for at least once in life: you risked, thinking that there is nothing that can stop you to make your dream come true and that your choice was going to have the best results. But the final disappointment was so big, that any time you have to take risks – especially when you find yourself in front of similar situations – you just think about those bad feelings and emotions; and you do nothing. Many would say that an advantage of this choice would be that you can always learn from others’ mistakes and less from yours – because you don’t allow yourself to do anything wrong. Acting this way you may be released after the challenge passes, because you aren’t hurt or even with a higher self-confidence, thinking that you did the best choice. But, on the other hand, if you look deep inside of you, you’d see curiosity, a bit of frustration and regrets because you didn’t risk. And finally, even if you are too proud to admit it, it always appears the same question What if I’ve chosen differently?. This choice would bring lots of inner flusters, worthless thoughts and could make you feel even worse than you felt after a real disappointment or failure.
And what about the ones who have enough self-confidence and courage to take chances whenever the opportunity comes? It’s obviously that many of them had already had failures, because it’s nearly impossible not to have them. But it’s like their strength grows up with every failure and with every success. They don’t care what will happen next, they just want to enjoy the moment. In a certain way, it’s better to act like them and to try to take life, as it is, with good and bad. Because you know, taking risks involves too types of consequences: either you manage to arrive where you wished to – and that involves optimism, self-confidence and satisfactions - or you deal with failures, regrets, maybe shame in front of others – but at least you know what happened if… and you know that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. It’s better to allow us suffer, to do mistakes, to be more indulgent with ourselves; taking risks also help us discover our personality, start looking deeper in ourselves for new skills and qualities. And if it ends wrong, besides all the regrets, we will become more ambitious and willing to improve our personality.
In conclusion, I think that the best answer is the equilibrium – just to know when it is worth acting and when the possible failure is pointless in our life. I don’t deny that it’s better for people to act than to live in fear, but somehow you have to educate yourself and test yourself whenever the chance to do that comes. And the most important thing is to allow ourselves to be ridiculous or losers without so much pain and suffering.
