Life is Suffering

Awhile back, I was experiencing a little lower back pain, concentrated on the right side. After a series of massage appointment, the pain was gone, but, irritatingly, now there was pain on the lower left side. Again, I booked a series of massages, this time focusing on my whole back. Soon, all my back pain was gone. That's when I noticed that my knees ached. 

I saw where this was going: each time I alleviated one pain, it left the space for another to rear its head. When I was a child, this wasn't true, but since I've been an adult, something always hurts . . . Except when I'm working with young children. The pain, wherever it's located,  returns the moment the last child has gone home.

Both Buddha and the Stoics have said, in so many words, that life is suffering. But we don't need the ancient philosophers for us to know this. I think we can all agree that there is enough suffering to go around. And while "life is suffering" may strike many of us as depressing, we can't ignore the truth of it. Everyone suffers. And I suspect, in the spirit of noticing a new pain each time an old one is eliminated, that everyone suffers equally.

The best part of having posted on this blog for so long (15 years!) is when a reader tells me that I've changed their mind or blown their mind or given them a new way of thinking about things. I know that when I read, my hope going in is that I will emerge a changed person. If nothing else, I seek to walk away with a new perspective from which to view the world.

When we're in school, we're taught that good writing starts with an outline, one that germinates in a premise, which we then support, followed by a conclusion. I don't write that way. Indeed, most mornings, at best, I have a quote or an idea or a story to get me going. I sometimes have an idea of where I'm going to wind up, but often, in the process of writing, the idea I started with leads me to something entirely different.

That happened yesterday. I had come across a series of Gallup polls of K-12 teachers that indicated that our profession is in trouble: we're burnt out, disrespected, and robbed of our agency as professionals. I thought I was writing a post about how something must be done about our increasingly toxic workplaces. But then, as I bounced back and forth between articles and the post, I saw that, despite it all, the people in our profession come second only to physicians when reporting an overall sense of wellbeing. We teachers tend to love our jobs.

I think we can all agree that life is suffering, so the question is, How do we live? There is a lesson in the story the surveys tell about us teachers.

Most of us, most of the time, I think, do what I did with my lower back pain. We take measures to alleviate our suffering only to find that the suffering emerges elsewhere. Some of us go from doctor to doctor. Others from guru to guru. Still others chase riches or fame or power in the hopes that if we just have a little bit more we can make the suffering go away. In yesterday's post I shared the conclusions of a study (and there are others) that indicate that if our goal is a sense of wellbeing, then we are best served by focusing more on other people, and specifically on helping them reduce their own suffering.

This is exactly what teachers get to do. As Aristotle stressed, a happy life must involve engagement with others, not just with the self. It's not surprising that physicians likewise report high levels of wellbeing.

Of course, a sense of wellbeing doesn't mean the same thing as the alleviation of suffering, because that is impossible. But when we help others, when we serve others, when we stop focusing selfishly on ourselves and turn our attentions outward, that is when our own suffering tends to recede into the background. It's still there, but it matters less.

In Leo Tolstoy's short story Three Questions, a king who suffers searches his kingdom for answers to his three important questions:

(H)e had it proclaimed throughout his kingdom that he would give a great reward to anyone who would teach him what was the right time for every action, and who were the most necessary people, and how he might know what was the most important thing to do.

And in the end, a hermit helps him to his answers:

Remember then: there is only one time that is important -- Now! It is the most important time because it is the only time when we have any power. The most necessary man is he with whom you are . . . and the most important affair is to do him good, because for that purpose alone was man sent into this life!"

The most important time is now. The most important person is the one we are with. And the most important thing to do is help them. These, to me, are the answers to the question of how to live. 

This is what teachers do.

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Hi, I'm Teacher Tom and this is my podcast! If you're an early childhood educator, parent of preschoolers, or otherwise have young children in your life, I think you'll find my conversations with early childhood experts and thought-leaders useful, inspiring, and eye-opening. You might even come away transformed by the ideas and perspectives we share. Please give us a listen. You can find Teacher Tom's Podcast on the Mirasee FM Podcast Network or anywhere you download your podcasts.

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