The older I get, the more I realize how much suffering is simply part of life. Like Rocky said—it’s not always sunshine and rainbows.
There are days when I just want to escape. I don’t want to go to the office. I don’t want to put out another fire in operations. I don’t want to hear about another problem. Sometimes, I just want to be a kid again—let someone else handle everything.
That longing for escape… it’s real.
I saw this post on X and got me thinking!
If we don’t accept our own destiny, a different kind of suffering takes its place: a neurosis develops, and I believe that the life which we have to live is not as bad as neurosis.
There are layers to this, but here’s what I took away: avoiding pain doesn’t erase it—it just replaces it with a deeper, subtler form of suffering. A kind that lingers. One that gnaws at you from the inside. Jung calls it neurosis. I think of it as the slow burn of living out of alignment with who you are.
It’s better to face the discomfort, the burden, the responsibility—head on. Accept the hard truths of your reality and make the difficult choices. That’s the real path to peace. Not comfort. Not escape. But honest engagement with your life as it is.
Avoidance feels easier in the short term. But long term? It costs you much more.