A Life Without Suffering Is A Life Without Meaning
“The most authentic thing about us is our capacity to create, to overcome, to endure, to transform, to love and to be greater than our suffering.”
— Ben Okri
We all want to be happy in life, right? But what does happiness really mean?Does it mean feeling good all the time? Having what you want? Or does it mean having an easy life, one that is pleasurable and void from any suffering? Or maybe, happiness looks like a combination of these things.
As humans, we are idealisers. We like to think of ideals and then orient ourselves to create those idealised things. In fact, we tend to create ideal versions of ourselves, and will work towards achieving that ideal self. We need to feel that we are progressing, achieving, and contributing meaningfully to life. However, we cannot attain any form of meaning in life without suffering.
It was Viktor Frankl, the profound psychiatrist and Holocaust survivour, who illuminated the vital role of suffering in a meaningful life. He taught us that fulfilment cannot be stripped of struggle. Without confronting our darkest moments, we cannot truly experience the richness of life. We must encounter despair, sadness, and anxiety, these states deepen our journey and form the groundwork for personal growth and authenticity.
When most people think of suffering, they imagine external tragedies — natural disasters, illness, economic turmoil, political upheaval, or social inequality. But there is another form of suffering, one that is just as profound: existential suffering. This suffering comes from within. It is the silent ache of unfulfilled purpose, the loneliness of inauthenticity, the yearning for belonging, and the frustration of feeling unseen or unheard. This internal suffering is not something we can cure by merely changing our circumstances. It is part of the human experience, woven into our very existence.
Trying to escape existential suffering is futile, as we are always on a quest to move closer to our ideal self. We are geared for growth and self-mastery. In fact, we derive meaning from this lifelong quest to attain the ideal version of ourselves. The tension between our actual self (i.e., the person you are today) and our ideal self (i.e., the person you envision yourself to become) is where meaning resides. We find meaning in the imaginative tension between opportunity and reality.
The field of Positive Psychology, for all its merits, has inadvertently cultivated a view of well-being that sidelines suffering, suggesting it is an obstacle to a fulfilling life. But this view is dangerously simplistic. Anxiety and despair are essential elements for a life well-lived. Life is not just about having friendships, relationships, work, and achievements. It is about having meaningful friendships, relationships, work, and achievements, and it is suffering that provides that meaning.
Don’t get me wrong, I think positive psychology has been revolutionary in acknowledging that we should be as concerned about helping people to flourish, as we are with healing clinical psychopathologies. It is for this reason that scholars like Paul Wong (2017) are now advocating for a Positive Psychology 2.0 movement that incorporates suffering into our understanding of well-being. This model acknowledges that despair and struggle are not symptoms of a broken life but indicators of a life that is being lived deeply and authentically.
As a psychologist and advocate of this movement, I see how our aversion to suffering only intensifies it. When people feel emotional anguish, they often believe something is fundamentally wrong with them, that they need a label to explain their pain, to “fix” what feels broken. But suffering does not signify that one is broken. Often, it signals that you are in the midst of a journey. In other words, you are doing this life thing “right”. Yes, it sucks, and yes, it is painful, but by labelling every period of depression, sadness, anxiety, or doubt, you are only tying yourself to that pain, making it harder to grow from it.
Again, don’t get me wrong, diagnoses have their place, it is essential for understanding and treating mental health conditions that are rooted in organic brain dysfunction. However, not every experience of sadness, anxiety, depression, apathy, intrusive thoughts, inattention, or fatigue requires a label. Over-pathologising the normal spectrum of human emotions diminishes the depth and significance of our personal struggles, depriving us of the lessons they might teach.
The more we try to escape our emotional suffering, the more elusive true fulfilment and meaning in life becomes. Avoiding discomfort renders life shallow, it drains the world of colour, depth, and richness. We actually yearn for difficulty, something to suffer for. When we get to just have what we want, need, and desire without effort, life becomes meaningless. We all want to feel like we are involved in something important, a pursuit that requires sacrifice and struggle but which is worthy of such sacrifice and struggle. It is our pain that brings life meaning.
So, the next time you find yourself in the grip of an inner struggle, resist the impulse to immediately seek relief. Sit with it. Let it speak. What is it trying to tell you? What unmet need or unfulfilled desire does it reveal? Embrace it, explore it, and allow it to guide you toward a more authentic version of yourself. Because in welcoming suffering, we find not only ourselves but the deeper purpose and joy that transform life into something truly meaningful.
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