Embracing Suffering: The Path to Happiness

Mother Nature doesn't care about human happiness, and avoiding suffering may not lead to true bliss or growth.

### The Importance of Embracing Suffering for True Happiness
* 😔  Mother Nature does not prioritize human happiness, as negative emotions are essential for survival by **alerting us to threats in our environment**.
* 🧘‍♂️  Epicurus, an ancient Greek philosopher, believed that true happiness comes from **eliminating sources of suffering in life** rather than seeking **constant pleasure**.
* 🌍  Society is currently in an "**Epicurean moment**," where there is a strong emphasis on **protecting individuals, especially children, from any form of suffering or conflict**.
* 🤔  However, by avoiding all sources of suffering, we are also missing out on the **negative experiences that help us learn and grow**.
* 🌟  Carl Jung's theory suggests that we can only appreciate the good in life because we have experienced the bad, highlighting the **importance of contrast** in our lives.
* 🌺 " By trying to get rid of their sources of suffering, we're getting rid of their sources of **bliss**.

A huge mistake that people often make is thinking that Mother Nature cares about our happiness. Mother Nature wants us to survive and pass on our genes, to get calories and mates, and to stay safe. Not only does Mother Nature not care about our happiness, Mother Nature knows that we need to be unhappy, that we need to have lots of negative emotions. They alert us to threats in our environment. We need to feel fear when something is a threat to us. Happiness is our business. That's the true human, even perhaps the divine path of how life actually works. Epicurus was an ancient Greek philosopher who had a very simple idea about how to be happier: He wasn't trying to have pleasure all the time. He wasn't some sort of unbridled hedonist. He just said that if I can eliminate the sources of suffering in my life, I'm gonna be a happier person. And, you know, it makes a lot of sense, doesn't it?

Given the fact that so much of our perceived unhappiness comes from the sources of suffering. If you can figure out a
way to avoid the sources of suffering, the relationships
that bring friction, the things that you don't like,
you'll be a happier person. It's intuitively a pretty
obvious way of living your life. That Epicurean idea of avoiding suffering has
been incredibly pervasive at different times in history. We're in an Epicurean moment. People think of the word Epicurean and they think, you know,
eating nice food and all that. But really what that means is trying to avoid the sources of suffering. And that's what we're
trying to do with our kids. We're trying more and more to keep our kids safe from
suffering and conflict. We try to protect students
from disagreements in the classroom or ideas
they might find objectionable. We're trying to protect anybody and everybody from the suffering

that is ordinarily attended upon life. And the reason is because suffering is actually part of life. And when we avoid the
sources of suffering, we're still gonna have just
as many negative emotions because that's the way that life works, and we're not gonna get
the negative experiences that help us learn and grow. So the result of it is that
the more epicurean that we are, the weaker that we grow up. Carl Jung, the great Swiss psychoanalyst, he talked about the fact that
we only know what good is because we see bad. We need contrast in our lives to actually experience the
beautiful things in life. And this is paradoxically
what we're denying so many people today. By trying to get rid of
their sources of suffering, we're getting rid of
their sources of bliss.

Why your Epicurean approach will never make you truly happy | Arthur Brooks

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Mother Nature's priority is our survival and reproduction, not our happiness, as negative emotions serve as a warning system for threats.

Happiness is our own responsibility, and according to the philosopher Epicurus, eliminating sources of suffering is the key to a happier life.

The concept of avoiding suffering to increase happiness is currently pervasive.

This idea extends to protecting children and students from any form of conflict or disagreement to minimize suffering.

The modern interpretation of the Epicurean philosophy focuses on avoiding sources of suffering in all aspects of life.

Embracing Suffering as a Natural Part of Life

Avoiding suffering doesn't reduce negative emotions, as they are inherent to life.

The contrast between suffering and joy is necessary for experiencing the beauty of life, as stated by Carl Jung.

Denying or eliminating suffering also means missing out on opportunities for growth and happiness.