Suffering

Is the purpose of human life.

Ambition ~ The emotion that leads to self-inflicted suffering

If you look back at all the work that you did, I am sure it is going to be that one project that kept you up through the night; that seemed impossible to finish, which you would remember fondly. I have come across nobody who told me that the highlight of their career was – ‘those three weeks when they got to sit around and do nothing in office.’

We thrive when we are suffering.

Celebrities who have made it and earned so much that they do not have to work another day of their lives often end up committing suicide. Their life promises no more suffering and therefore no purpose. Also, perhaps they do not have the ambition to invent a new kind of suffering for themselves, like say, starting a production company. 

Every fallen businessman seemed to have it made, till they did not. Vijay Mallya could have just partied for the rest of his life and he would not have exhausted all his wealth. But he had to start an airline. It gave his life purpose.

Amitabh Bachchan had peaked and done some of the best work of his life by the late 90s but he had to start a production company. Both people ended up almost bankrupt thanks to their ambition. 

One has not bounced back, the other has and incredibly so, but that is for another blog.

What we call ambition is just another way of describing a person who is willing to put himself/herself through a degree of suffering that is greater than what they are currently going through.

It might seem like hell when you are going through it, but you will get to the other side and you will look back at it fondly. For sure. 

Suffering is what great stories are made of.

Have you read any story that ended – “then he got a job and had a steady salary for the next 30 years.”