Eric Thomas Suffering People

Making it through hard times is challenging but worth it at the end. “Put your heart, mind, and soul into even your smallest acts. This is the secret to success.” - Swami Sivananda

David Brooks argues, in his essay “What Suffering Does”, that pain often gives people a new outlook and possibly even a new path in life. He explains that suffering can help people see their lives from an outsider’s perspective, discover new depths of their character, and often find new paths: “The grief of having lost a loved one smashes through what they thought was the bottom floor of their personality, revealing an area below,” (Brooks 286). Brooks in this passage describes how suffering can enhance a person’s character. As cliché as it sounds, hardships can, in fact,

The theme of suffering will be talked about throughout this essay. Even though it isn’t the most pleasant topic to talk about, it is part of our lives. The dictionary defines suffering as “The state of undergoing pain, distress, or hardship.” This essay will examine suffering and how it shows up in different printed sources, as well as in my personal life.

Thinking about suffering is pretty frightening, now the minimum event that occurs to someone people call it suffering, but have you thought of how this was even worse in the past with racism, economic problems, and human experimental discoveries? In “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” by Rebecca Skloot a lot of central ideas are being formed, and one of them is suffering. Suffering is illustrated in Henrietta, Deborah, and Day. First of all, this central idea is formed in Henrietta being used for experiments and with her illness. In page forty-two Skloot states, “Henrietta knew nothing about her cells growing in laboratory.”

There are many differing ways that people suffer. Some effects can be superior and some can be inferior. In the quote by H. Richard Niebuhr, suffering can make you stronger, have more character, along with respect.

In the Gospel of Mark and in the short story ¨Sonny's Blues¨ by James Baldwin there is a theme of the redemptive role of suffering. In these texts suffering is shown to allow the sufferer to be understood, while questioning if the suffering is worth being understood. In “Sonny’s

Evidently, suffering can give a person strength to go on in their daily lives. Being

Dillard explains, saying, “They had not known, before they were burned, that the world included so much suffering, that life could permit them personally such pain.” (Dillard 100) This shows that people don't recognize that there is suffering, but once they do, they know that life can change in drastic, horrifying ways, and can affect even the most protected of

Why humans suffer and where God is during it are theological questions that have constantly been debated on. Rabbi Kushner in the PBS video Suffering: A Time to Love and a Time to Hate, John F. Haught in his book Responses to 101 Questions on God and Evolution, and the Bible each provide their own analysis on where God is when humans are suffering and persecuted. Thomas West is his chapter “The Human Response of Hope” gives his insight regarding life after death especially hope for salvation. All these sources aid in answering personal questions regarding theodicy: suffering, death, and hope.

A famous example of somebody that defeats a hardship is Cristiano Ronaldo. As a kid, he had a dream to be a professional soccer player but, he got a severe heart disease called racing heart disease. When he recovered, the doctor told him he couldn’t play anymore. However, this didn’t stop him from completing his dream. He went on to play professionally and became one of the best soccer players to ever live and also broke many

Encouraging Suffering is a book written by renowned Chinese writer Zhou Guoping. It is the same book that has kept me afloat in the merciless waters of the dark side of the ocean of life, and it has had a very strong influence on my perspective towards hardship.

Struggle and suffering can show us who would sacrifice and help us when we are in need.

Suffering is an experience that many face when subjected to pain. Regardless of if the hardship is psychological or primarily physical, the whole body suffers. In the aspect of literature, the involvement of suffering is shown in a broad perspective of how human existence is viewed. Specifically, in the works of Othello by William Shakespeare, and 1984 by George Orwell, suffering is portrayed to to further motivate the plot and point out the flaws in society, and its characters.

Our experiences of suffering may also help us in our moral conduct as an experience of suffering serves to make us sympathetic to the trials of others. We learn to a) help the afflicted (through consolation and relief) and to B) not inflict harm on others, having experienced suffering ourselves. Furthermore, many spiritual seekers in the past have felt that suffering and spiritual progress are inexorably linked, pointing to St Teresa of Avila and St Francis of AssisiI as examples . I believe that if we can learn from our

“Suffering” is a word which carries negative connotations, used to incite pity, empathy or fear. Why would it not? Is suffering not simply agony, defined justly by the Oxford Dictionary as “the state of undergoing pain, distress, or hardship” (“Suffering)? Yet, we accept suffering as part of life, a fundamental aspect that defines living. Nietzsche tells us that the very act of living is suffering itself, but to survive is to find value in that suffering. Yet, what sort of value can be attached to an idea so negative? Pico Iyer’s editorial in the New York Times explores the value of suffering, likening suffering to passion and “[p]assion with the plight of other’s makes for ‘compassion’” (________________).I began to think upon the cohesive