Pamela Cooper-White Suffering

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,

We were engendered to live and interact with others because that’s what makes our lives consequential. In our world, there are many perpetual malefactions of human suffering that cadge for people’s attention. Surprisingly, not many of us avail others in any way, shape, or form and that might be due to different factors that circumvent us. Sundry authors distributed their opinion through articles and documentaries about the causes and effects of human suffering. During times of distress and suffering, people often times react in an unresponsive and careless manner which results in reinforcing the enemy, and perpetrators of iniquity.

Pain is universal. In life, everyone will feel pain; it is inevitable and cruel. Physical or emotional, insignificant or severe, it is there. The pain continues mounting into an unbearable amount of suffering. Suffering that blots out everything of worth, such as family, love, aspirations, and optimism. Hopelessness seizes any will to endure. With no way to subside or control the pain, often one will go to extremes in order to be free of it. Many take their life, in order to escape the horror. Committing suicide is a traumatizing experience for any and all involved. Life is precious. The chance to live is only given once, and cannot be taken for granted. Preventing even a single life from ending early is imperative and obligatory

Suffering is part of the human condition in which one undergoes pain, distress or hardships. When most people suffer from any sort of distress, they experience terrible agony. Depression, at times, is their end result. However, others attempt to escape suffering and become stronger individuals. They begin discovering inner strengths, which allows them to get past suffering rather than becoming weaker. The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano by Olaudah Equiano and A Narrative of the Captivity by Mary Rowlandson are both narratives written by two individuals in which they are faced with the challenge of overcoming obstacles that refrain them from growing stronger and detaining from the affliction they are met with. These obstacles include of distress, struggles and difficulties.

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

Bethany Hamilton screamed "I got attached by a shark". Her friend Alana, her dad Holt, and her brother Bryan rushed to get to her. Holt got there first, staring at her arm being gone, but stops because he knew if he didin't hurry she would die of blood loss. Bryan called 911, and waited for the ambulance. When the ambulance came, they rushed to get her to the hospital. A couple of hours went by, Bethany got out of surgery. After all the visits and stuff she asked when can she get back in the water? The Doctor said it would take a long time for her to get use to having only one arm. The doctor talked a lot but all she could think of was the ocean. Thats when she made a promise to be on a surfboard by Thanksgiving Day.

Sara Josephine Baker was the first woman to serve as a top administrator at the New York Board of Health. Though Baker’s memoir, Fighting for Life, people will be able to approach the process of how Baker became a pioneer of public health in New York city from an unknown inspector through historical descriptions of New

“All you gotta do is open yo legs!” Said the boy I had only seen a couple of times around school before. I felt like my life was flashing before my eyes. I was hoping for this moment to end. The smell of weed and cigs filled the air. It was a beautiful day outside and yet all I could hear was cars and buses rushing by. This is how I knew no one would hear my cry for help.

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

It is essential to establish whether we have a right to decide a person’s capacity to endure suffering. The experience of suffering differs from person to person. Are there any rational ways of determining what suffering consist of for a group of people? Is it ever morally acceptable to allow a person to suffer? Do we have the right as a nation to step in to mitigate a person’s suffering?

“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

Life’s sufferings offer us a lesson to build character and faith to ultimately gain judgement.

The suffering of man is a very complicated matter that is most likely impossible to understand completely. It is a subject that people have grappled with since the dawn of recorded history. In fact, suffering is evident in every form of art man has created. Suffering is in our paintings, our poetry, our music, our plays, and in anything else that is conceivable. But still, we as a whole still struggle with the idea of suffering. It is my opinion that some individuals may grasp the notion of suffering more than others, but that no one person will ever fully understand suffering in every form. A person may only understand his or her own personal suffering, not suffering as a whole. It is the next step to then say

It has taught me that a big part of chronic illness,stress, anxiety and mental illness is a direct result of blocked emotions and negative thought patterns. When we stay stuck in a “story” we often take on the victim role. This resonated again with me recently when I revisited a Ted Talk about domestic violence that I had seen a few years ago by Leslie Morgan Steiner. She talks about being the victim and the beliefs that she had. I began to think a lot about victim roles and how dangerous they can be.