Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.

Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.

Pain is inevitable; suffering is optional.

Pain is unavoidable, but suffering is optional.

El dolor es inevitable, el sufrimiento es opcional.

El dolor es inevitable, pero el sufrimiento es optativo.»

pain is inevitable,suffering is optional...
we have bigger houses,but smaller families. More conveniences,but less time. We have knowledge,but less judgements; more experts,but more problems ; more medicines but less health.

Going around in a sulk will get you nowhere. Pain is unavoidable, but suffering is optional.

If suffering is inevitable, if our problems in life are unavoidable, then the question we should be asking is not “How do I stop suffering?” but “Why am I suffering — for what purpose?

There are situations in which one is cut off from the opportunity to do one's work or enjoy one's life; but what can never be ruled out is the unavoidability of suffering. In accepting this challenge to suffer bravely, life has a meaning up to the last moment, and it retains this meaning literally to the end. In other words, life's meaning is an unconditional one, for it even includes the potential meaning of unavoidable suffering.

Pain in this life is not avoidable, but the pain we create avoiding pain is avoidable.

So of course some aspects of ‘optimal’ will include pain or suffering or hardship. We all know that’s how this works.

The answer to the problem of suffering is not away from the problem but in it. The inevitability of pain will not be met by deadening sensitivity but by increasing it, by exploring and feeling out the manner in which the natural organism itself wants to react and which its innate wisdom has provided.

Pain is an inextricable thread in the fabric of life, and to tear it out is not only impossible, but destructive: attempting to tear it out unravels everything else with it. To try to avoid pain is to give too many fucks about pain. In contrast, if you're able to not give a fuck about the pain, you become unstoppable.