Life IS what you make it. But dealing with pain and suffering doesn't mean making it go away. Like I said before, without pain and suffering we wouldn't learn anything. Making your life better requires finding ways to function despite difficulties. It's the process of building new skills and making adaptive changes that makes our lives better. Nobody ever rids their lives of trouble or pain, they just learn to live differently so the effects aren't as bad.

benpeters posted:

"life is what you make it" = choosing to accept evil as an inseparable part of everyday life.

If by "evil" you mean "stuff that sucks," then yeah. Nobody is exempt from going through shitty circumstances in life.

OMS posted:

jayetheartist posted:

benpeters posted:

"life is what you make it" = choosing to accept evil as an inseparable part of everyday life.

If by "evil" you mean "stuff that sucks," then yeah. Nobody is exempt from going through shitty circumstances in life.

It's futile.


ETA...I don't believe anyone has mentioned Karma. Hmmmmm...

I don't believe in Karma. A lot of assholes are lucky in life and some genuinely good people go through a lot of shit.

benpeters posted:

What I object to is that you're OK with that; with the "trouble and pain". Like it's fine that it happens, and there's never going to be anything anyone can do about it.

Object to that all you want, but it would seem that those of us who are OK with the existence of trouble and pain and recognize that, indeed, there's nothing anyone can do about it seem to suffer a lot less.

And I think OMS meant that trying to offer any point of view that differs from yours in this thread as an attempt to contribute to the discussion is futile.

benpeters posted:

What I object to is that you're OK with that; with the "trouble and pain". Like it's fine that it happens, and there's never going to be anything anyone can do about it.

I think it's almost delusional to think it's in anyones control to do something about the existence of shit stuff in life. Events happen. All that's in anybody's control is how you react to them. Noone has power over the universe.

jaytheartist posted:

Object to that all you want, but it would seem that those of us who are OK with the existence of trouble and pain and recognize that, indeed, there's nothing anyone can do about it seem to suffer a lot less.

Totally agree with this.

Suge posted:

Anyone who tells you to change if yer unhappy is not having the same struggles as you and thinks that you changing is an easy thing.

At the risk of making NIN.com implode on itself by disagreeing with Suge , I'm not sure that's always true. In many cases the people who can tell you to change and genuinely mean are people who have gone through similar problems and understand just how hard it really is. Those are the people who believe in your ability to change, and that's why they encourage you to do so, IMO.