Why is life difficult

[Joscha]

Note: I wrote this post in an emotional state. I don't really know if this is the right place for that. But if you got nothing else to do you may as well read it.

 

Why is life difficult? Sometimes I feel so tired of it and wonder why it even is like that. Is there a way to make it not difficult? Even when I have hope to one day come to a place where life flows and is beautiful, I dread the path that leads there is full of difficulty. And thats the way it seems to be. Its just always such a struggle. I am tired of it. I want to let go. But if I do I will just lie around and then after some time I will probably get even more depressed. If we are all god I don't know why theres so much struggle in becoming happy. I want to flip a switch and make life nice but it doesn't work that way does it. Its a cruel joke. Every step I take towards a better life is a drag and makes me wonder if its really worth pursuing it. It just doesn't feel good. It doesn't feel good to live. I know that it could be better but just the thought of all the stuff I have to do to make it so paralyzes me. I want to be happy now, not in the future. 

It feels like everytime I try to make life better it just gets worse. Why does feeling bad lead to feeling good? Pursue suffering to feel better. Meditation is painful, exercise is painful, reading is painful, socializing is painful, discipline is painful. All painful things lead to happiness. And all things that aren't painful ultimately also lead to pain. It all leads to pain. I  am so tired of this concept. 

I feel like a guy who has to carry a large rock on top of a mountain in order to be happy. But why can't he just be happy down there? Why all the carrying stuff. The sad thing is I've been in this place of mind so many times in my life and I know exactly whats going to happen. I will keep being depressed until it gets a little bit better, maybe try some new technique or something. I will push through the struggle. But then soon enough I will be tired again. And wonder why I am really doing all of this. And then maybe if I am depressed enough again I will search for a quick fix because I am hopeless. And I will look for answers like right now. And maybe find something remotely helpful. And so the cycle begins again. I know all the techniques. I know suffering is in the mind. I know the self is an illusion. I know  meditation and the work and all these fancy things. But my psychology keeps me stuck. The happiness never lasts. Nothing you will tell me can help me. I am stuck.  I am afraid one day I won't have enough energy to start the cycle again and just stop. Stop everything. I just don´t want life to be difficult. I don't care if its petty. I just don't want to suffer. I want it to stop. Everytime I try again I have a little less hope. M hope is running out. 

[Rigel]

Life is simple if you let it be that way. You have many fantasies of how and what life should or shouldn't look like. You are projecting that onto your reality. That's the whole process of it being created.

You can choose how you create it but your orientation is twisted as if you were walking backward. You can't see what's coming and as soon as there's an obstacle you fall on your back and it hurts. You could choose to turn around and see more clearly what is going on if you wanted to(NOT wanting to end suffering. Wanting to see clearly.) That way obstacles are still there but you are in a position were you can see them.

If you're up for it I suggest you spend a lot of time doing nothing/meditating. You will suffer a lot don't get me wrong. This is precisely what is going to grow you

Still I wish you the best  (it's twisted I know)

 

[Wlangr]

I hear you, drop the large rock and head back down the mountain, drop it all, you are worth more than pursuing happiness.

[MuddyBoots]

Hi Joscha, I can see you are really suffering, it sounds tough. Have you considered you may have a medical condition like depression and tried treatment such as anti-depressants and counselling? They don't work for everyone of course, but some of us have been cured of depression that way. Perhaps there's a chemical imbalance in your brain that's keeping you stuck. That may sound materialistic but hey, some people here do psychedelics so what's the difference?

You don't give a lot of detail about your situation; that's perfectly understandable if you want to stay confidential on a public forum. Have you got the basics sorted - home, job (or education), relationships? 

You're right that happiness doesn't last, I quite agree, all our mental states are temporary. You say life is difficult, I don't think anyone has it easy, even the Buddha said 'life is suffering (dukkha)'. Spiritual techniques don't help you. You feel stuck in a hopeless cycle, you ask for help & at the same time doubt if we can help you. 

Alright, I'll suggest something a bit different then. If you've got the basics sorted and have some spare time, how about embracing life's struggles and volunteer to help people worse off than yourself? Do you think that might help you break out of your painful cycle of despair? Volunteer at the local hospital perhaps, or with disabled people, the elderly or mentally ill, the homeless and destitute? Carry someone else's heavy rock and see if you can make them happy for a while. See if your difficult life can be a little ray of sunshine to another struggling soul. Service to others is a powerful spiritual practice too, gives us new perspectives and opens up energy, compassion, abilities we haven't realised before. I volunteer with children, their enthusiasm and joy in the present moment is inspiring. 

Nick. 
 

 

Edited September 7, 2019 by MuddyBoots
Grammar.

[crab12]

You are stuck in life, you feel depressed and apathetic. Then when the depression and anxiety becomes unbearable it pushes you into action. You start getting back on track and things are improving. But then the anxiety and depression and guilt, that was compelling you to work, dissipates and you become apathetic again and stop taking action. And then the depression and anxiety starts building up again and the cycle starts all over.

The only thing that gets you off your ass is unbearable anxiety, depression and pain. And everything you do is difficult and you hate that. Your intuition is telling you that something's wrong, life is not supposed to be this way, otherwise you wouldn't have come here looking for answers. And you're right, this is a horrible way to live life. You can clearly see this from your own life. But you just can't do anything about it, everything you have tried so far has failed. You're still stuck in the cycle.

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I know all the techniques

You mean productivity techniques like 5 second rule, TODO lists, eat the frog etc? Of course they don't work, sooner or later the ego finds a way to bypass them. They were written by clueless people and they don't address the underlying issue.

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Is there a way to make it not difficult?

This is going to be a bitter pill to swallow, but no.

You know that there are people in the world that do extraordinary things, right? Like people who come from absolute poverty, start a successful business, work 12 hours a day for years and years, while still exercise, eat healthy, find time for their family and raise awesome kids. How do you think they do it? Do you think that they have some kind of superhuman tolerance for pain? Imagine all the pain and suffering you are going through, their pain and suffering must be at least 10x that, right? Well, no. They don't have a higher pain tolerance than you, they are normal humans just like you. So what is it then that makes them able to do this?

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If we are all god I don't know why theres so much struggle

God had to rest on the seventh day. This is not just a silly old saying, god had to rest because it is difficult and a struggle even for a god. Btw I'm not a christian, but this saying is true nevertheless.

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Meditation is painful, exercise is painful, reading is painful, socializing is painful, discipline is painful

This is the fundamental nature of life that it's difficult. Nothing is free in life, everything has a cost and that cost is emotional effort. The greater the thing you want to accomplish the greater the cost of emotional effort.

Do you see the problem now? You don't want to be miserable and stuck in life. You want to be happy and you want to do awesome things in life. But it's going to cost you a fucking boatload of effort. The effort is not the problem. The problem is how you view effort. You think that effort is "bad". You want to avoid effort. You are afraid of hardship and struggle. You think that you want a life where there is no more struggle, hardship, pain or effort, you can finally kick back and relax. You think that this is happiness. I'm going to tell you that this is not what you actually want. Your ego wants that and it has tricked you into believing that this is what you want too. You actually want to not be stuck in life, you want to live an amazing life, you want to do the things that you secretly dream of.

The solution is you have to reframe what effort means to you. Here is a better way to view effort. Effort is not that unpleasant. It's like you are standing in front a cold pool and you have to jump in but you are afraid, you dip your toes in and it's freezing. You stand in front of the pool for 10mins fighting and arguing with yourself. This is what makes it unpleasant mostly. If you just say fuck it and jump in then yeah it's going to be painful for a bit but then you quickly acclimatize and it becomes refreshing and pleasant in its own way. Making emotional effort doesn't leave any permanent damage to you. You'll never run out of effort, you'll recover. Emotional effort is good because it lets you create whatever you want in life. There's a trick in life that whenever you are stuck and don't know what to do, then the correct thing to do is the thing that is emotionally the most difficult. The best path in life is the path of most resistance. Right now you are leading a life of least resistance. You want to get on the path of most resistance.

Yeah, easier said than done. Personally for me it took tens and tens of hours of contemplation to break out of this thinking that effort is a "negative" thing and something to be avoided. I can honestly say that I will gladly face massive struggle and hardship if it's for the right thing. Which leads us to the second part of your problem is that you have no direction in life. Why would you suffer through a boatload of effort if it goes towards something you don't really care about? You won't be able to do it. You need a clear understanding of what you want out of life and only then you can take on the massive effort to work towards it. This is the only way it can work. There's no other way. That's why all the productivity techniques fail because they don't address the obvious problem that you have no idea what you want out of life and you view effort as "bad" and something to be avoided.

Try it. Once you have those 2 things fixed (you view effort as good and you want to face effort; and you know exactly what you want out of life) you wouldn't believe the difference it's going to make in your life. You'll never look back again.

Best of luck!

Edited September 8, 2019 by crab12

[MuddyBoots]

@crab12   fantastic advice for us all. I remember doing an assertiveness course years ago which all made sense as long as I already knew what I wanted, I asked the teacher 'how do I know what I really want?', which was met with a totally bemused reaction. Until we experience our dreams in real life, they are just guesswork and we don't know if we will actually enjoy them. So we nee d to take risks, make mistakes and learn about ourselves and life to help decide what direction to take. 

[Nahm]

@Joscha Or, you don’t know any of that. That’s possible, available even. 

[Charlotte]

@crab12 great read, very inspiring ?

[Moreira]

Life is difficult because the matrix is piramidal and needs to opress people in order to others stay on the top. 

Plebs are fed with social believes to become unhappy all the life, that unhappiness is what makes the consumerist machine work.

We are slaves.

[Joscha]

@crab12 Your post speaks to me a lot. Thank you for your answer. How you described the cycle is the exact pattern my life follows. I'm having a hard time accepting the thing about effort, but at the same time I can intuit that you are probably right... There's a part of me that wants to rebel against this, that doesn't want to accept that life is resistance. I don't know if I really can follow a path of most resistance, but I can certainly try. I don't understand why loa teachings always seem to preach the reversal, but I guess I don't really understand the law of attraction anyways. 

With techniques I also meant more "high consciousness" stuff like meditation. But I guess the problem is that it always comes from a place of trying to avoid pain. (maybe loa does make sense if I look at it that way!). 

I really really wish I could implement this wisdom and do the things that are emotionally difficult but something in me is also extremely afraid of doing so. I also kind of tried it before after watching Leo's video on it but I guess I never really surrendered to the idea in the first place. I have to get it into my head that emotional effort is not unpleasant. I don't know why I'm so senstitive to it but I keep projecting it into the future and it scares me a lot. 

I have a hunch of what I want in my life, but its also not clear. And also there are multiple things I want.. So I guess working on the vision would be good. 

 

@MuddyBoots Thank you, you're very sweet. Yes the basics are fine I guess. I am studying abroad so it gets a little lonely, but I do have friends here. I have been studying for a week now and I hope the stress won't degrade my mental health too much. I don't know if I can make volunteering work because I am already very busy with studying right now and I tend to get overwhelmed easily. But I do love the idea, maybe I can implement focusing on others in some way.. About therapy I don't speak dutch and live in the netherlands so I don't know if that works but if it gets a lot worse I will look into it. I don't know if I have depression, my baseline happiness is rather low I'd say and in between I get into very bad emotional states (like yesterday). Sometimes I'm afraid of my emotions because they can get so intense. 

Whatever the case, thanks guys I think sharing in itself already helped a lot. 

 

 

 

Edited September 8, 2019 by Joscha

[Joscha]

@Nahm I'm not sure I understand or how I could implement that

[ajasatya]

@Joscha It's difficult because you're trying to get things from life. The moment you realize the power of service, you'll be free. The way of the servant is the most magnificent one among human beings.

There's nothing to gain here. There's nothing to take from this place. There's no point in controlling people. Contentment is sitting right next to you.

Although, paradoxically, if you act from a mindset of contentment and prosperity, you'll achieve a lot. But still there will be nothing to take from here.

[ChrisZoZo]

Life is not hard the mind say's its hard and you believe it. If one thing was hard like reading then reading must be hard for everyone but its not, so it made up in your head that's its hard. When you get a thought of something you are about to do as this ____ is hard recognise this and without fighting the thought with other thoughts let it pass and it will be come effortless. 

 

"without fighting the thought with other thoughts" this very important get this and your life will become near effortless. 

[crab12]

@ajasatya brings up a very good point. This is the flip side of the equation. If you don't try to create anything there will be no suffering. And I'm not being dismissive, this is also a good way to live, maybe even better than mine.

Why do I make an effort to create things that I want? I question this all the time, especially right now as I can feel the pull of @ajasatya argument. I know that life is not what it appears to be. The first time I experienced this it demolished my motivations that I had back then. I'm also not looking for contentment. I have no illusions about finding fulfillment in external things because there is non to be found. I just do because I want to, I can't even explain this. There's just a deep desire in my gut to do certain things and I follow it.

@Joscha The realization about effort will not come easily and the ego will fight back. Don't take my word for it. Contemplate on it and you should eventually reach this conclusion yourself because it's just the truth.

After you have this insight that effort is not a "bad" thing / it's neutral, then you can implement this way of life. On the other hand after you get some glimpses of what life really is you'll be able to let go of everything and be totally content too. In the end it's going to be your personal choice.

[Nahm]

6 hours ago, Joscha said:

@Nahm I'm not sure I understand or how I could implement that

Just write your perspectives down on a piece of paper, then write the opposite perspectives next to each of them. 

Notice, someone see’s it the way you were, and for them, it is “true”. Someone else see’s the opposite perspective, and for them, that is “true”. 

Seeing perspectives are only relatively true, you can realize you’re in the position to choose your perspective. 

Let go of the perspectives which aren’t serving you, which don’t feel good to you, by saying - “ok, ya, I really don’t know that...it’s just a perspective”.

 

 

[crab12]

This thread has been on my mind a lot. There are people who work extremely hard but are still miserable inside. Like a workaholic CEO or most 9-5 workers sadly. Thinking that you'll be happy or fulfilled once you earn / save enough money or get a raise or get some other external thing that you desire only brings misery. And even if you do get the external thing you think you wanted the good feeling never lasts more than a couple of days or weeks, it always erodes and you'll just invent the next goal to chase after and continue being miserable.

The anxiety and depression are there to tell you "hey! You're wasting your life, this is not what you actually want, do something!". But since you are so trapped inside your mind you are unable to see this yourself. And since you keep ignoring or distracting yourself from negative emotions they'll keep hurting you more and more until they become unbearable. A good way to discover what you really want is by listening to your negative emotions, that's why they are there.

Once you discover what you want, whatever it is, you'll find that making an effort towards it is not bad at all. It'll be worth it. Even if you want want to drop everything else and meditate for the rest of your life to reach enlightenment it's going to take foresight and planning and therefore effort.

@Joscha The cycle you described in your original post sounded eerily similar to what I went through couple years ago. That's why I was able to describe it accurately. I was stuck in pretty much the same situations for ~5 years. I went through my old journals and discovered that after I figured out what I wanted in life, instead of motivating me my life vision became a huge source of anxiety and pressure. I had thought like "The things I want are so ambitious. I have never done anything this hard. I always fail. I can't do it. There no way I can do this. This is ridiculous and impossible. Etc." Yeah that's how I discovered I also have massive victim thinking. The next step was to break out of victim thinking so that I honestly believed that I could do the things that I wanted. Just a heads up if you happen to stumble upon this too. I remember how fucking torturous this process was for me. I just wanted to let you know that there's light at the end of the tunnel and I hope you make it.

Edited September 9, 2019 by crab12

[Daz]

On 07/09/2019 at 2:07 PM, Joscha said:

Sometimes I feel so tired of it and wonder why it even is like that

The fast pace of life has become more evident which causes burnout. We live in a world where everything can be done instantly, checking and replying to email's, text messsages, the online nature of things. It is all kind of information overload these days. 

 

On 07/09/2019 at 2:07 PM, Joscha said:

I will push through the struggle. But then soon enough I will be tired again

That is what the spiritual process kind of does. There will be struggles and barriers, but you will always come back to being a truth seeker after giving up on it. The cycles are emotional releases. Each time there is an emotional release, it is followed by rumination, contemplation, more insights into truth and then peace.

 

On 07/09/2019 at 2:07 PM, Joscha said:

Everytime I try again I have a little less hope. M hope is running out. 

At times is seems like we are tested to our threshold. But this is part of the process. I think of it that the ultimate and final threshold is the passing over from this life, but for some of us, that process can happen earlier. Certain fear or pain thresholds are reached followed by a sense of relief.