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20.03.2018 Feature Article

Overcoming Suffering

Overcoming Suffering
20.03.2018 LISTEN

One word that make many people uncomfortable is “Suffering”. Suffering is a state of undergoing pain, hardship or distress. It is an inevitable state of life. Nothing on earth is designed to be achieved on silver platter. Some sweat ought to touch the ground; some blood needed to be shed; and some pain must be endured in this life. You cannot hide away from suffering; you might dodge it today, but I guarantee you, it would pounce on you tomorrow with powerful strength attached. Nothing on earth can grant you an absolute comfort expect heaven. Every situation comes with its own suffering. What we need today is not to dodge suffering which is a dream impossible, but to prepare and build our minds to embrace suffering and garner the needed strength to overcome and deal with them when they come our ways.

Suffering from the Christian perspective began in the garden of Eden, when Adam and Eve disobeyed the Lord’s command by eating the forbidden fruit. Curses of suffering were pronounced. That is, before one can smile, some suffering need to be endured and overcome. It is clear, the difference between the successful and the unsuccessful is their approach to suffering and how they perceive them. The latter complains and dodges suffering, while the former embraces, endures and overcomes suffering. Every suffering is a challenge to either elevate or displace you. Your attitude is the key; either you complain about it or deal with it.

Life is a graduation of suffering. The higher you climb, the tougher the nature of suffering that will come your way. How you dealt with suffering at the primary stage of life will decide your success in secondary stage. Great leaders became great because they overcame suffering during their years of servitude. Some became leaders by skipping suffering. Today, they are really struggling and embarrassing themselves.

Elevation from one position to another don’t eliminate suffering. Your promotion might come with an extra benefit, but that new level also come with tougher challenges and unique suffering. You can’t escape suffering in this life and therefore there is the need to learn how to endure and overcome any particular type of suffering that will come your way.

Basically, there are three natures of suffering that will come your way. The first type comes as a result of a mistake you did in the past and therefore, undergoing suffering as a result. The mistake came because you dodged suffering and chose path of comfort in the past. Remember, life is a principle; whatever a man sows, he reaps. You need to deal with today’s suffering to avoid tomorrow’s regret. Our present suffering as a country can be attributed to the choice past leaders and citizens made in the past. They chose to live in comfort instead of dealing with the suffering that came their way. You can reduce tomorrow’s suffering by overcoming today’s suffering. Running away from today’s suffering will meet you tomorrow.

The second type of suffering is a suffering that you face due to wrong decisions of others. This has nothing to do with your actions, but the mistakes of others. Many children are suffering due to bad choices of their parents. Citizens are suffering due to bad government decisions. Workers are suffering due to poor management of some leaders. Some families and communities are suffering due to greedy actions of their leaders. Some lives had been impaired and disabled due to bad decisions by drivers. All these happened because these people chose relaxation when moment of suffering came. Your inability to deal with suffering and overcome it will have a future consequence on people around you. Most developed countries are where they are today due to how their forefathers dealt with suffering when they came their way. They fought them, they overcame them and developed characters that see suffering as a challenge to be solved and never to be dodged.

Lastly, this type of suffering comes as a result of one’s willingness to cause a change in his/her future. It is the type of suffering a student subject his/herself to study hard and resist pleasures to excel in the future. It is the suffering parents bear to ensure they secure better future for their children. It is the type of suffering generation make, the sacrifice they endure to ensure their future generations survive. It is the type of suffering we must go through if we want the best for this country and future generations.

Suffering does not kill but come to make you strong and tough for the future. It is in suffering we develop love for country, character for development, fearless spirit to face challenges, powerful mind to solve problems and selfless spirit to help one another. We need to overcome suffering. So how do we overcome suffering? What are the tools we need to acquire to enable us endure? Watch out for part 2

Jeffery Amo-Asare
[email protected]

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