You’ve probably heard this before:
Pain is inevitable; suffering is optional.
It’s been around for a while, source unknown to me, but I know it to be true. The external events we lament are nothing compared to the stories we make up that invite our suffering.
Take this simple but piercing example. Surely we’ve all been cut off in traffic. It is what it is, someone cuts in front of us or zooms past on the shoulder or pushes into our lane, delaying us some amount on our journey. The pain there can vary wildly based on if you’re late or hate stop-and-go driving or love being in your car any time.
But the real suffering is from our story.
If we make up a story that that driver believes they’re better than us or that they believe they deserve to bypass us in line, we can become unglued. Lookout! Road rage straight ahead! And once we’ve invited that rage, our suffering increases exponentially. Suddenly, not only are we late (and then a few seconds later with this new car in front of us), but now we are a lesser person! Now we are no longer deserving of our spot in this life!
You can see where this goes. It is our story that causes the suffering, not the reality of the situation.
So what if we made up a better story? What would it be like to choose the story that invites peace or ease instead of boiling rage?
My story about whether you can pull off a poodle skirt costume with a cast didn’t keep me from trying anyway!