Personally, most of my life has been both difficult and unpleasant due to mental health issues (and capitalism), so I’m just proud of myself for still being here.
Personally, most of my life has been both difficult and unpleasant due to mental health issues (and capitalism), so I’m just proud of myself for still being here.
Years ago I might’ve said something like school or overcoming my setbacks, but if that were the case, it’s less so now because my mind no longer squares the view that they’re challenges with the view or understanding that I would not wish many of the things I went through on anyone, if it ever did. Can you imagine going through things you were never meant to go through while people watch silently and measure your self-worth based on your success in endurance as if to imply the moments that haunt you forever were all a game and one you wanted to play?
I think your outlook and mine are similar.
People like to say things like, “It’s so inspiring you got through XYZ! I could never do that!” The news sites run a lot on that sentiment.
But if you look through history, people of all stripes actually are good at surviving through stuff, simply because there’s no choice. You just go forward. You see this in action in war-torn countries…everyone, of all different stripes and different personalities, surviving in one way or another. It’s not all that unusual to survive shitty things.
So I feel like the worth is in what you learned from those experiences, as some people survive them but don’t learn much from it, while others wring the crappy experience of every scrap of knowledge it can possibly offer.
But you can wring experience from good experiences just as well as bad ones, so wouldn’t it be nice if nobody had to have bad experiences?
Basically, I don’t think suffering brings any sort of grace, but if you are forced to suffer, it seems important to wring any scrap of knowledge from it you can. Tear the silver lining out with your fingernails if you have to, haha.
If I learned something doesn’t change whether it was worth it, which is first instinct to ask. I’m not feeling it.