How can I be happy amid so much suffering?

We must make the distinction between affliction and suffering. We incur suffering but we create unhappiness. The Sanskrit word dukkha, the opposite of sukha, does not simply define an unpleasant sensation, but rather reflects a fundamental vulnerability to suffering and pain that can ultimately lead to world-weariness, the feeling that life is not worth living because there is no way to find meaning in it. Sartre put these noxious words into the mouth of the hero of his book Nausea:

“If someone had asked me what it means to be alive, I would have answered in good faith that it means nothing, merely an empty vessel…. We were all just a pile of awkward lives, embarrassed by ourselves. We hadn’t the slightest reason to be there, none of us. Every living being, confused, vaguely anxious, felt redundant… .1 was redundant too… .1 had vague notions of doing away with myself, to rid the world of at least one of these superfluous lives.”

The belief that the world would be better off without us is a common cause of suicide.

Suffering can be triggered by numerous causes over which we sometimes have some power, and sometimes none. Being born with a handicap, falling ill, losing a loved one, or being caught up in war or in a natural disaster are all beyond our control. Unhappiness is altogether different, being the way in which we experience our suffering. Unhappiness may indeed be associated with physical or moral pain inflicted by exterior conditions, but it is not essentially linked to it.

A study of quadriplegics found that although most acknowledged having considered suicide at first, a year after having been paralyzed only 10 percent considered their lives to be miserable; most considered theirs to be good.-Just as it is the mind that translates suffering into unhappiness, it is the mind’s responsibility to master its perception thereof. A change, even a tiny one, in the way we manage our thoughts and perceive and interpret the world can significantly change our existence. Changing the way we experience transitory emotions leads to a change in our moods and to a lasting transformation of our way of being. Such “therapy” targets the sufferings that afflict most of us and seeks to promote the optimal flourishing of the human being.

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