The Gifts of Suffering

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Whether they are professional or personal, struggles and challenges come to us all, and we suffer in one way or another. One of my clients is struggling through a career transition after taking time off to care for her father during his cancer treatment, much like the many women who take time off for childbirth, and she has suffered through the rejections of her applications for many jobs (often with no reason given). Another friend recently saw a considerably younger and less experienced person promoted to be her supervisor, a role for which she may be objectively more qualified. 

Often we can’t see any gift or grace in the midst of these struggles or the suffering they bring. Those gifts are almost always there, but the pain is sometimes too great: we can’t see the gifts through the tears. We often need to grieve, share, and release the pain before we can see those gifts.

What are these gifts? Perhaps one is that suffering reveals and reminds us of the reality of our weakness, limitation, and need. Perhaps the grace of suffering is in the humility, vulnerability, and broken-openness to which it can draw us, and in the self-knowledge that can come from those.

Every affliction tests our will, showing whether it is inclined to good or evil. This is why an unforeseen affliction is called a test, because it enables a man to test his hidden desires.

—Mark the Ascetic

Every struggle, challenge, or affliction is a gift when it enables us to see ourselves more clearly, more realistically, when it reveals what had before been hidden, particularly our desires and the inclination of our will.

This is a deep subject, far beyond anyone’s ability to explore in a short message. I write mainly to encourage those of you who may be suffering in some way, and all of you who might remember this during a future challenge: suffering can hold much more than just pain. Hidden in it may be precious gifts for you. I always welcome the opportunity to help you see them.

How to Cultivate Humility

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“Comparison is the thief of joy” if your desire is to come out on top. But it turns out there’s a case for coming out on the bottom in comparison. 

Others have made the business case for humility quite compellingly, and a recap is omitted here in the interest of brevity. Leaving aside the debate about whether or not humility can be instilled or developed in someone else, here are two practical suggestions for developing it in yourself:

[There] are many things the intellect can do in order to secure for us the blessed gift of humility. For example, it can recollect the sins we have committed in word, action, and thought…True humility is also brought about by meditating daily on the achievements of our brethren, by extolling their natural superiorities and by comparing our gifts with theirs…

Hesychios the Priest

Non-religious readers who might be turned off by the word “sins” can simply substitute “mistakes” or “failures” for it and profit from these two practices. 

Humble sobriety about one’s weaknesses, flaws, and blind spots, combined with an appreciation of the corresponding strengths, faculties, and gifts of others are two ingredients for a culture of interdependency that often characterizes the most high performing teams.

Beacons and Battlements

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There’s a mashup meme that links the “seven deadly sins” to different social media channelsª: gluttony with Yelp, lust with Tinder, greed with LinkedIn, sloth with Netflix, envy with Facebook, pride with Instagram, and—you guessed it—wrath with Twitter. 

A lot of argument happens on this particular social network, whether generated by presidents or peons. At best it wears you out and at worst stirs up rage. Some people argue because they like to argue, but many argue for what they believe is right or true. Enter some ancient wisdom:

Do not argue with people not under obedience to you when they oppose the truth; otherwise you may arouse their hatred.

—Mark the Ascetic

We have a duty to confront opposition to the truth among those under our authority or care because we’re responsible for protecting them. In this case, to correct is to protect. But what about others? Patrick Lencioni has described healthy teams in which the members can argue passionately with one another yet maintain respectful, cooperative, and productive relationships once decisions are made.

Expanding the meaning of the quotation beyond the monastic context it comes from, it may be more widely applicable to assert that we do well to avoid arguments over the truth with those to whom we are not committed or loyal—because relationships matter more than being right. 

Truth will always win, even if it takes a while. So instead of speaking the truth as one wields a weapon in war, speak the truth as one lights a beacon. Those who heed it will profit from it, avoiding the reef and perhaps adding their light-bearing voices to yours. Those who disregard it may suffer the consequences, but they will not be at enmity with you.

ªhttps://thisisarray.com/7-deadly-sins-on-social-media/

Living Knowledge

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One of the best qualities of Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything is that it is so well written. This is wonderful for the aspiring chef, for he needs to return to the book often for reference and assurance, and it’s pleasant to find a voice and personality in the text rather than just the data for ingredients and process. But perhaps the best quality of this particular cookbook is that the author pushes his reader to action. 

Often our knowledge becomes darkened because we fail to put things into practice. For when we have totally neglected to practice something, our memory of it will gradually disappear.

—Mark the Ascetic

Okay, this makes sense: we remember what we do by practice. But ever since “Google” became a verb, it’s easier than ever to find what we’ve forgotten. Which leads to the question: In our ever-expanding human knowledge, what’s worth remembering? And especially since time is limited in a way that knowledge is not, what’s worth remembering by practice?

Perhaps the words of a more modern psychologist, Jamie Moran, can help answer this question: “Western rationalism as always mistakenly valued theory over practice, seeing practice as merely the ‘application’ of theory. But practice is a domain on its own, and so the practitioner discovers things, and undergoes things, that the theoretician either could never have imagined or dreamt of, or even if they were partially foreseen, they prove importantly different when they emerge and are encountered on the ground.”

So what is the knowledge that is so important that you’re willing to have it expanded and yourself changed by putting it into practice?