Why Most of Your Suffering Isn’t Real

When do we suffer?

According to Buddhist philosophy, all suffering, or dukkha, arises from attachment. We become attached to our environment, to outcomes, to emotions, and to the stories we carry about the future and the past. It is this clinging that leads to suffering.

Let’s explore suffering from a linear perspective.

Imagine your life as a timeline, stretching from birth to death. Birth is fixed in the past, death will come sometime in the future, but in between is a finite span, your life. While we don’t know the full length of this line, we can agree it has a beginning and an end.

Now, if we look closely at this timeline, there is only one point that we ever truly occupy: the present moment, the now. Not five minutes ago, not five minutes from now, just this one dot in time.

“In this present moment, there is very often no active suffering.”

And here’s something profound: in this present moment, there is very often no active suffering.

What is Active Suffering?

Let’s define active suffering as suffering that happens right now and is not self-inflicted.

For example, imagine you walk into your boss’s office and are fired on the spot. In that exact moment, you may feel pain, shock, or fear. That is active suffering. (Or, perhaps, relief, depending on your relationship with your work.) But even then, the five minutes before weren’t suffering, and strangely enough the five minutes after might not be either.

You might protest: “But of course I’m suffering five minutes later! I just lost my job; how will I pay rent or support my family?”

“It is future suffering brought into the now.“

And this is precisely the crux of it: this new suffering is not rooted in the present moment. It is future suffering brought into the now. It hasn’t happened yet. It’s imagined, anticipated, it’s borrowed.

Similarly, if you spend weeks reliving that moment, replaying the scene over and over in your mind, that’s suffering borrowed from the past.

Most Suffering is Not in the Now

So here you are, sitting in the present, suffering over what was and what might be. But if you pause and really examine this moment, right now, is there any actual suffering?

The now is often surprisingly free from pain. Most of the time, what we perceive as suffering is attachment to a past we can’t change or a future we can’t control.

Letting go of this attachment is how we let go of suffering.

“Letting go of this attachment is how we let go of suffering.“

Instead of dragging every painful memory and every fearful projection into the present, what if we focused only on what is actually here, now?

By living in the now, we free ourselves. Free from the past. Free from the future.

Energy and Liberation

Here’s another important insight: dwelling on past or future suffering drains us. It consumes our energy and attention, leaving little for the present. But by letting go, we release that energy, freeing it to nurture the life we’re actually living.

The present becomes richer, deeper, and more alive.

Choosing Not to Suffer

Ultimately, we suffer because on some level we choose to.

That’s hard to admit. If we choose our suffering, we become accountable for it. That’s a heavy responsibility. It’s easier to say “I suffer because of them.” It externalizes the pain. It’s not your fault. You’re not accountable.

“If we choose our suffering, we become accountable for it.“

But what if we made a different choice?

What if we chose to come back to the present?

To hold this moment with presence and compassion?

To let go of borrowed suffering and make peace with the now?