The Two Qualities That Make Us Suffer
It came to my mind that I once shared the two qualities that make us successful. Yet we are not going to discuss their opposite now. Success is not the opposite of suffering. In fact we can fail without suffering, or fail happily.
However when we talk about suffering, it is like touching the basic feature of life. Don’t we all experience suffering?
Suffering is human, but it doesn’t have to color our life. I learned that apparently we can live a life free of suffering. Over the past three years, I gradually became more convinced that we need to prioritize removing the following two qualities:
1. Arrogance
Arrogance or excessive pride is a big source of suffering. In my three years of self-development journey, I discovered that arrogance is not a mere feeling of superiority like I once wrote. Arrogance stemmed from a basic quality: lacking knowledge about oneself.
It includes both superiority and inferiority. Why? Because lack of knowledge about oneself makes them unable to position themselves right. We regard ourselves either too high or too low. That’s why Arrogance is the best friend of Envy.
With arrogance, it’s very difficult to recognize that something in us needs to be changed. How could we know what we need to change, if we don’t even know what’s within us? Let alone taking feedback from others who see what we don’t see within us.
The opposite of arrogance is humility. With humility, we see ourselves with no specific framing. We don’t see us as too high or too low. We let things come our way and then decide from there whether it’s useful for growth or not.
Humility also comes in the form of apologizing, saying sorry even when we think we’re right.
How to achieve humility? Surrender. By surrendering to God, we give our needs to value ourselves away to God. We let The One be the judge of our high or low, because in The One’s Eyes everything is already on its place, meant to be, no actual high and low.
2. Rejection
Rejection is probably the biggest source of suffering. In my 3-year self-development process, I discovered rejection as something very deeply embedded in my psyche. It goes beyond just the fear of rejection as I once learned from Buddhist monks.
It went deeper each time I recognized it in me. When I thought I were rejected as a child, I discovered fetal rejection in the womb. When I thought rejection is something we developed in this life, I discovered that we practiced rejection in many lifetimes before. That’s why rejection appears in the form of Ego, a very strong sense of self.
With rejection, it’s very difficult to accept realities. We imposed self-limitations resulting in feeling unworthy. We became very fixed in our ways, which results in our inability to accept other people’s ways. We cannot see that chaos goes hand-in-hand with order to create growth.
The opposite of rejection is acceptance, but the opposite of “the need to reject” is release. With release, we have no expectations. We let things flow and get ready to swim along.
Release also comes in the form of forgiving, letting go even when we’re hurt.
How to be able to release? Surrender. By surrendering to God, we trust that all events would unfold by themselves. We let The One guard all of our endeavors, because to The One everything is already on its place, meant to be, no need to reject certain possible outcomes.
Early in my journey I saw the importance of surrender, but I learned that surrendering is not easy. It requires a genuine trust in God. Recognizing the above two qualities in me helped me pave the path toward surrender.
How did I discover the above two qualities? Long story short, I was quite happily married for ten years, committing as a faithful partner, until it abruptly ended. The divorce was severely against my value of growing together in a companionship, but I had no power to prevent it from happening.
Trusting God was apparently something I had to relearn. I used to rely so much on my partner and personal values that I forgot that God is behind all that has happened in my life. I discovered that I was arrogant, thinking that I was in control of my life. I was also rejecting myself resulting in rejecting other people’s love to me and most importantly God’s Love.
When we’re lacking God’s Love, we don’t have love at all. When we don’t have love, how can we give it to others?
Fortunately, it wasn’t long before I discovered a community where I learned to put the theory of Surrender into practice. It’s a practice of continually shedding layers that were hindering me from becoming the best version of myself. How does it relate to surrender? Well, as I shed each layer, I found that more barriers between me and God were dissolved.
“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.” — Rumi
Apparently, trusting God comes from loving myself. I would say embarking on a journey of becoming one’s best version is a true statement of self-love. In that journey, I discovered God’s Love that I used to reject. Thanks to the many layers that I had to shed.
As I increasingly felt the Love of God, it became easier to truly trust God and eventually surrender. Gradually I developed a new life purpose, focusing on continual alignment with God. The journey also trained me to seize countless opportunities for practicing humility and release by apologizing and forgiving.
Nobody is perfect, but everybody has the right to discover their pure self a.k.a. the best version of themselves. Like everybody, I’m a work in progress. Yet I’m grateful that only in three years I could share insights from my journey above. Who knows that the same community might benefit you as well.
Thank you for reading!