Can You Avoid Suffering?

What gives you happiness? Is it what you have or what others have? If our possessions would have made us happier, we should have been the happiest generations as we possess far more things now than ever before. Yet you find most people quite unhappy despite being more prosperous and enjoying more freedom that ever before.

We may be talking about ‘equality’ and ‘justice’ all the time but the fact is that we actually wish to have more than others or have more power and higher position than others to feel happy. If we become twice as rich but our neighbour becomes four-times richer, we feel miserable. You may remember the following Aesop’s Fable.

Two neighbours came before Jupiter and prayed him to grant their hearts' desire. Now the one was full of avarice, and the other eaten up with envy. So to punish them both, Jupiter granted that each might have whatever he wished for himself, but only on condition that his neighbour had twice as much.

The Avaricious man prayed to have a room full of gold. No sooner said than done; but all his joy was turned to grief when he found that his neighbour had two rooms full of the precious metal.

Then came the turn of the envious man, who could not bear to think that his neighbour had any joy at all.

So he prayed that he might have one of his own eyes put out, by which means his companion would become totally blind.

This story tells us the root cause of all the conflicts and pain in the world. We are all filled with greed and envy. We are unhappy not because we are earning less, but because others are earning more. We are unhappy not because our spouse, children, friends and organization are not good, but because others are better. Hence, we behave like the envious man of the story and try to destroy others by crime, corruption and constant criticism.

It is impossible that everyone has more wealth, power and prestige than others. Hence, it is impossible to imagine a world where everyone can be happy. The development of a country and growth of economy can never solve the human problems of pain, misery and frustration.

We can be happy only at individual level when we learn to appreciate what we have rather to bother about what others have. At the social level, however, people are bound to suffer as they can’t avoid comparing themselves with others.