I am big on the belief that everything we got through in life has a meaning, a reason for happening. Whether it’s because of karma or because things just are or aren’t meant to be, is up to you. Maybe you attach religion to what happens to you. Maybe you attach science. But no matter how a person validates what happens to them, one thing always gives them comfort: it happened for a reason.

And that’s perfectly acceptable to me. I know that I am the sum of every good and bad thing that has happened to me and for me and because of me. It is everything that makes me. Everything that makes all of us. So of course we’d like to feel as if all those emotions weren’t for nothing. Depending on the emotion, though, this is easier said than done.

Like happiness. It is easy to justify why we get to be happy, why certain things make us feel all those endorphins. I’ve never met a person who’s upset because they’ve had too many happy occurrences within their lifetime. In fact, most people wish they had more. And people don’t try to reason out why they had to go through these happy events – they just accept them and try not to take them for granted. They see it as luck. They see it as something precious.

But what about suffering? Much harder to accept, right? You ask the world, “Why does this have to happen to me? What did I do to deserve this?” We’ve all been there. Trivial things like test grades and fights with friends. Big things like losing someone you love or getting abused. Everyone has suffered, some more than others. And a lot of times it’s hard to justify.

Don’t get me wrong! I do understand that there’s a lot we can learn from going through hardships and I don’t want to invalidate any of those things. I believe the tough things I’ve gone through have made me a better person in some aspects. In fact, there’s this great article that pretty much spells out how suffering is actually beneficial to the individual: (http://elitedaily.com/life/youre-not-the-only-unha...)

But I also recently read something that resonated with me. It’s from the book Comfort Foods by Kate Jacobs: ““Sometimes suffering is just suffering. It doesn’t make you stronger. It doesn’t build character. It only hurts.” And while I love the article I mentioned before, I love this even more. Because it’s true that suffering can make you stronger and build character and do all sorts of great things for your soul. But operative word here is “can”. Because it’s also true that suffering can make you bitter and hateful. It’s also true that suffering can break you. Because no matter what, it always, always hurts. And people don’t all handle pain the same way.

Suffering can be unnecessary and undeserved. And you are allowed to gain nothing from it. You are allowed to feel your pain and be angry that it’s for all for nothing.

It’s in that moment where hope plays a huge part in you pulling yourself together. There’s this quote from Avatar that I love: “In the darkest times, hope is something you give yourself.” When you’re hurting, please keep this in mind. Because maybe today your suffering has no deeper meaning to it, but that doesn’t mean you can’t make it mean something tomorrow. Hope that you can one day do something that stops people from having to suffer the way you did.