Why Do Nice People Suffer - Reasons & Solutions

Time and again, we see nice people suffering. We wonder why do nice people get a raw deal when in fact, they should be happier. In this podcast, we try to uncover the reasons and learn about practices people can follow to decrease and/or eliminate the suffering. For the spiritually advanced, disassociating with the physical body and aligning with the causal body provides the solution. This episode is focused at people who are not able to relate to things beyond this body.

Transcript

Namaskar,

Today we are going to talk about a topic which may be useful for many of you.

This may be a question that you may have.

Looking at life,

Looking at things for people around you,

Looking at your own suffering and you may have wondered why nice people suffer.

Today in this episode we are going to provide a simple explanation of why people suffer.

We will describe this topic first from the world view of theological perspective,

Psychological perspective,

Sociological perspective and the spiritual perspective.

Before we start to break those down and provide seven simple reasons why nice people suffer.

And after we discuss why we suffer,

We will talk about what can be done,

What is that you can do so that you do not suffer.

If you are spiritual,

If you have followed the teaching of Lord Buddha,

The very reason for this world is that this world has suffering.

And no matter who you are,

Everyone suffers.

But then we see in our lives that some people suffer more and some people do not suffer as much.

And at the same time,

When we try to categorize things,

Though may imperfectly,

We feel that people who are nice,

Who are caring,

Who are considerate,

They tend to suffer more than the people who are more selfish or narcissistic or ignorant.

So in this episode,

We are going to address why people suffer or why nice people suffer.

If you have tried to look into this topic or the solutions or even try to understand the reasons why people suffer,

You would hear from many people,

Many perspectives.

One such perspective is the theological perspective,

The religious perspective.

Some people talk about the reason for suffering is that we all are sinners.

Some religion believe that everyone who's living as human has done some mistake,

Has committed sin.

And it is God's duty.

It's God's will.

To cure us from our sins.

And we have to repent for our sins.

So we all are sinners.

That is why we suffer.

That is one of the explanation religions give.

Then some of the Eastern religions talk about this world as illusion.

This world as not real.

They describe suffering as not real suffering,

But we suffer because we are under the illusion.

And when we realize who we are,

What we are,

Our sufferings will end.

Then some religion talk about karma,

Our own past actions,

Actions from this world,

From this life or beyond.

And that is said to be the reason for suffering.

And then some religions simply talk about divine knowing the best for you.

They simply say,

Since you do not know everything,

Since you do not control everything,

Leave it on God and God knows the best and God will do the best.

So that's the explanation we get from our theological school of thought or religious people.

When it comes to our society and we'll talk about sociological reasons,

People talk about things of your past or things surrounding your upbringing or things surrounding you as a person.

Maybe things related to poverty,

Relative inequality,

Maybe being subject to racism,

Sexism,

Maybe displacement or being part of a competitive culture.

It could be many factors that could cause people to suffer,

That could cause people to withdraw and have a pessimistic view of this world.

So from sociological perspective,

People talk about these as the factors for suffering,

As the reasons for suffering.

When it comes to experts,

The psychological people,

The people we consider to be expert on how brain functions,

They relate things with our upbringing,

Meaning things related to our past,

The quality of upbringing,

The kind of love or lack of it that we received either from our parents or from our society,

The kind of upbringing we had when it comes to protectionism or how vulnerable we were,

How dependent we were on things,

Things related to our childhood trauma,

Being subjected to some torture and so on and on.

So they try to relate every suffering with some cause in this world,

Something related to your past where you may not be active participant,

You may be a passive participant or you may be just an observer.

The final school of thought we are going to talk about today is spiritual reasons for suffering.

So when you talk to spiritual people,

They talk about we suffer because this is what we agreed to.

We are living the life that we agreed to.

We selected this body,

This life and all the sufferings in it.

Then they also say that since you identify with this body,

Which is what you are not,

That is why you suffer.

If you focus on who you really are,

You will not suffer because the suffering are from this world.

When you focus on this body,

You associate with this world and the sufferings in this world.

The other explanation they give is having a focus which is on materialistic things,

Things that do not actually bring happiness.

And they say when we focus on things,

We bring unhappiness.

We bring momentary happiness in our lives,

But they do not help and are suffering.

And then if you talk to some other spiritual people,

They'll say what suffering?

There is no suffering.

All we experience is illusion.

It is like that dream we are watching or we are experiencing,

But when we'll get up,

We'll realize that there was no suffering,

It was a sleep.

In this explanation may help some people understand why things happen.

They do not help us in a way to do something about it because it is something which is beyond our control.

And if something is beyond our control,

Can we not do something about it?

So respectfully,

I'm going to give you a simple approach,

A simple explanation of why people suffer.

Some of it may include things that I mentioned earlier,

But I will try to explain that in a simple manner.

So one of the reasons we suffer in this world is because of expectations.

Whether we pay attention or we don't pay attention,

There is no denying the fact that we do have expectations.

And when it comes to expectations,

Those expectations are either from others or our own self or from the situations.

We act,

React,

Behave in a way that we expect the outcome.

So since we have expectations,

We suffer,

Then the question would be,

Why do we suffer when we have expectations?

And the simple explanation is that because we do not have control over outcome,

When we do not have control over outcome and knowing that we expect,

Are we not setting a foundation for us to suffer?

Because the outcome may happen as per our expectation or outcome may happen against our expectations.

The expectations may not be a reason for suffering if you have control over the outcome.

So unless you have control over the outcome,

Expectations do bring suffering.

Now the good news is that you can get that control.

You can control some of the outcome that we are going to talk about little later in this episode.

The second reason we suffer is because of the influence of people and situations around us.

We call ourselves as social animal living in society and being dependent on various people around us.

Whether we call them friends,

Family,

Society,

Colleagues,

Relatives.

There's no denying the fact that we live in a society and when we live with people,

We are unduly influenced by people if we don't pay attention.

If you're not watching what you're receiving,

You may very well be influenced by someone without you knowing.

You may catch yourself doing the same thing or similar thing that you are influenced by and that is an automatic influence.

Influence even works further when someone tries to convince you,

Tries to give you reasoning and tries to give you more information,

Tries to share wisdom and you get influenced by that.

But if that wisdom,

If that influence,

If that knowledge is something that doesn't serve you well,

Chances are you're going to suffer.

While others may try to feel how you feel,

Many of them may never feel how you feel.

So they may never know what is the right solution.

Remember I said many of them.

I did not say all because some people are able to see and help you find the right solution.

But as a rule of thumb,

Just remember that we get influenced by people and that is something that brings suffering if that influence is not something that helps us.

The third reason we suffer is because of lack of reciprocation from others.

It is similar to the expectation we have from others.

But if we look a little more closely,

This is something that we need as validation for our action.

We want to be good to people and we want people to reciprocate.

We want to act in a way and we want people to act in that way.

While expectation may be with someone that you did not do anything for,

Like you expecting something from your parents,

Your family,

Even though you've not been good to them,

You know they are going to be good to you.

Disaffection is something that we expect in return and at times we do not get that return.

Forget about getting something back.

Many a times people do not simply acknowledge or notice and worst,

Many of them even do not agree even though we try to tell them.

So something that you consider to be good or a favor or doing something for them and looking reciprocation for,

They may not simply agree and that is something that causes suffering.

The fourth reason we suffer is because we do not learn the lesson.

While things happen in some way or other,

We categorize them in good or bad.

If we don't see why are things happening and what is that you can learn from them,

You will not be able to learn something from the situation.

You will simply look at the outcome.

You will simply look at the series of events.

Action,

Reaction,

Change.

But if you look at why something is happening,

Why you acted in a way or why you reacted in a way or why something is happening repeatedly,

You will start to learn the lesson.

So many a times we suffer because we do not learn the lesson.

The fifth reason of our suffering is that we do not learn the right lesson.

While we may be completely ignorant about the lesson we need to learn,

We may also be ignorant about what lesson to learn.

And many a times even though we try to look for the lesson,

Many a times we are not able to learn the right lesson.

At times we focus on superficial things without going in depth of things.

And that's when we are not able to connect with the true cause of something,

The true lesson that we need to learn.

So that is a cause of suffering as well.

The sixth reason for suffering is the place in the life journey.

The journey that I describe of soul.

The journey of real you and the accumulation of karma.

It is in line with what some other people talk about when they explain things from spiritual perspective.

And that is true.

But just know that you are definitely someone who is not this body.

You were something before you were born.

You will be someone after you die.

And who that is matters.

So that is why it is important to know your journey.

And at times that is something that plays a huge role in why or how you suffer.

You may be concerned that how can I control something that I do not know about?

How do I get to know my past or my real self?

Well,

There are practices about that.

There are practices that can help you understand that.

And one day we are going to talk about that as well.

Moving on to understanding the reason number seven why we suffer is a simple lack of awareness and self-belief.

We at times do not know what we bring,

What we are capable of.

At times we undersell ourselves because at times we tried overselling ourselves and we failed.

At times our overconfidence came in the way and dented our self-belief.

Well,

That overconfidence may be a misjudgment in some quality,

Some aspect of your abilities.

That doesn't mean all other abilities are same.

So when we do not have awareness about our capabilities,

Our abilities,

That is a cause of suffering.

So we looked at seven reasons for suffering and I hope that has helped you understand why we suffer.

So now let's move on to discuss how we can overcome or what we can do to remove this suffering.

I understand there may be reasons for suffering,

There are reasons for suffering,

But what are the solutions?

So let's talk about the solutions.

So we'll focus on the same categories that we just defined.

The reasons for suffering.

One of the reasons we talked about suffering was expectations.

It is important that we understand the world a little better.

And we know that expectations,

While may bring happiness,

Assurance at times,

They also bring suffering.

So in order to not expect,

Know that we live in a world that in general does not appreciate the niceness.

So there are high chances that you may not get people to respond as per your expectations.

The other thing you can do is you may want to check with what you expect,

Whether you have the right expectations.

An experience can be the guide of it.

Based on experience,

Based on the constant analysis,

You can set the right expectation and you'll be better prepared.

And you will see that when you have right expectation,

Your suffering becomes less.

The other thing you can do about expectation is try not to have expectations at all.

And when you do not have expectations,

You remove any suffering coming from expectations.

So develop practices to not expect.

Constantly remind yourself that things may not happen as per your expectations.

Constantly remind yourself that the outcome is not in your control.

How someone would react is not in your control.

Many people develop this habit of not expecting anything.

And when something beyond their expectation happens because they have low expectations,

They become happier.

Many times people also learn to develop skills so that they are not impacted by the outcome.

So while you may have expectation,

You may develop tendencies to let go of the outcome.

If things happen as per your expectation,

It brings happiness.

But when things do not happen as per the expectations,

You simply let go.

So the part of suffering or part that brings suffering when you let go does not impact you.

So you can develop those tendencies,

Those abilities to let go or have low expectations or have no expectations at all.

The other reasons for suffering we talked about were influence of others and lack of reciprocation from others.

So for that,

My suggestion would be that you do not go by the popular opinion on this matter.

Instead,

Always choose to listen to your consciousness.

While people may give you sound advice,

You will not be able to discern whether the advice is good or not good.

Is something helpful for you or not helpful for you?

And if you follow an advice which is not helpful for you,

You will end up suffering.

So why not simply start focusing on something that you can count on?

That I can assure you is always the right source of information.

Always the right source of your guidance is your consciousness.

When you start to listen to yourself,

You get the advice that helps you,

Removes you from suffering.

Now the question may be how do I develop ability to listen to my consciousness?

Well,

For that you need to start spending time with yourself,

Get into habits of getting deeper to understand yourself and your true self.

You have to withdraw from being materialistic and start to focus on the spiritual aspects of life and with the developed connection with your consciousness,

The awareness of your consciousness,

You will be able to remove the suffering.

The next set of reasons for suffering we talked about were not learning the lessons or not learning the right lessons.

What to do with that?

For that what works is that you do not align yourself with the outcome.

And when I say you do not align yourself with the outcome,

What I would like to say is that something at times what appears to be something or the reality is actually different than how we perceive it to be.

We may be looking at one side of the overall picture and considering it to be the complete picture while that may be only one perspective.

Remember the example of blind men trying to describe an elephant.

If the blind man only catches the tail for that person or that man,

The elephant will be like a rope.

Is the blind wrong in the observation?

No.

Based on the perspective,

The tail does appear to be like a rope.

But we also know that is not the complete truth.

While something may appear to be truth,

It may not be the complete one.

And that is why we should not align ourselves with the outcome.

The outcome may be something that appears to be something,

May not be complete.

The other example I talk about is bamboo.

You water the bamboo seed for five years without seeing anything,

Any growth happening outside.

While things may happen within Earth,

You don't see anything coming out of Earth.

And for five years,

We just keep watering,

Not knowing whether our efforts are being fruitful.

But after five years of consistent effort,

Not giving up,

We see bamboo start to grow.

And then something that did not grow an inch in five years grows up to 100 feet in six weeks.

So we may consider something to be a growth of six weeks,

Ignoring the fact that it taken five years for that six weeks to come.

Without that five year period,

Those six weeks simply do not exist or will not exist.

So at times when we look at outcome,

We may be in that five year period where we are trying to do something and not seeing things happening as per our expectations.

Are we seeing the outcome and thinking something is not working?

Well,

It may be working,

Maybe within the surface.

So learn to be not aligned with the outcome.

The other thing you can do about learning the lesson or learning the right lesson so that you do not suffer from that is focus on learning the lesson on anything that happens whenever you see there's some suffering.

Whenever you see things do not go as per your expectations or your anticipation.

When it comes to people,

When you do not see the reciprocation,

When you do not see people responding in kind,

Rather than changing yourself or being not nice,

Stay nice,

But change the people around you.

Maybe you are not in the company of people who support you well or who understand you well.

Just remember the bamboo story.

For anything to work,

We need to make it work.

And for making something work,

We need to be able to pay the price.

So like a bamboo,

The price is five years.

If you do not have five years,

You may not be able to make it work.

If you do not have patience,

You will not be able to make it work.

So simply,

There might be people who do not react or respond to your kindness or do not contribute in order to serve you well or do not contribute towards your happiness.

So either you pay the price to change them or move on to find better people,

People who contribute to your happiness.

And finally,

For the reason of lack of awareness and self-belief as suffering,

My simple advice for you would be to stay nice,

Stay kind,

Be grounded,

Be connected,

Be honest,

Be ethical,

Stay true,

And you will see sooner or later your niceness will be rewarded.

Get rid of your fear.

Get rid of your concern.

If you are religious,

Simply leave that on divine.

If you're not religious,

Just remember that what you send out is what you receive.

And when you continue to send out the niceness,

Sooner or later you will receive niceness and that will end your suffering.

Another reason for being nice or staying nice is that we live in a world where we at times do not pay attention,

But there are many people who need niceness,

Who need that guidance.

And when you help others,

When you help others realize you participate in the universal objective,

Well someday we'll talk about what that universal objective is,

But there's a reason why selflessness and being helpful works.

So stay nice,

Be helpful,

Be kind,

And soon you will get the niceness back.

And finally,

Before we go,

I would like to leave you with one statement,

One quote,

Which is everyone is here for a reason.

You are here for being nice.

So just be nice.

Do not let the suffering impact you.

I can assure you,

You may not be happy with something.

You may be suffering really badly,

But the end result will bring pleasure and happiness,

Will bring bliss.

Some of may that happen that you can experience within this body and some of may that happen that you will experience later on after you leave this body.

My simple request to you would be just stay nice and think of a long term and remember one thing,

What you give is what you receive.

Each action has a reaction.

So stay nice,

Stay kind,

Be helpful.

Help others and eventually you will see that you are helping yourself.

Until next time,

I hope that you will move away from suffering towards bliss.

Namaskar.

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