The pursuit to eliminate suffering in one’s life is fruitless. There will always be some measure of suffering and the less one experiences, the more attuned to it one becomes. The princess and the pea is not merely a fairy tale: when one becomes more and more accustomed to a life free from suffering and ostensibly comfortable, the more the smallest inconvenience weighs upon him. Avoidance of suffering is a sure path to unhappiness.

On the contrary, if one embraces suffering, one grows to tolerate it. Daily sufferings outside of one’s control strenghten those who embrace them and chosen suffering makes coincidental ones that much easier to bear.