The secret defiance of claiming our suffering 😏

Like all good topics, this has been worked over so many times, pondered throughout all histories, by people far wiser than me. Yet I still find it meaningful; I hope you do too.

At breakfast this morning, a friend was talking about how you can be sad at Chet Baker’s tumultuous life, or appreciate the wild beauty of it and his contributions. I was reminded that suffering often feels senseless when we’re going through it. After the fact, maybe for years or decades, we can look back and see the horrors we’ve endured as evil. But some of us are lucky enough to get enough of something—time, wellness, perspective—for our greatest suffering to transform into gifts. To see how it shaped us.

There’s more than “everything happens for a reason” here. I’m suggesting we can take our suffering and make it into something worthwhile. This becomes an act of defiance against injustice, as we no longer let the circumstances determine who we are, but instead claim that right for ourselves alone. 

Perhaps even more powerfully: We can remember this while we’re enduring pain. What we’re going through may be senseless, but we can know that at some point, maybe years from now, we will make this experience meaningful. We will make it ours. Maybe, just maybe, we will hold this secret defiance in our hearts such that we never fully buy into the story that we’re victims. Not because some divinity or karma will one day make it right, but because we will.

With love, Jordan