Philosophy of Happiness - Part III

Philosophy Column

Why Running From Pain Makes Everything Worse It sounds counterintuitive, but trying to avoid all suffering can make you more miserable. If your life is organized around avoiding discomfort—skipping hard classes, avoiding difficult conversations, numbing out with Netflix and social media—it’s not working, is it? You’re not happier. You’re just… numb. Beneath that numbness is a growing sense of emptiness.

Both Buddhist philosophy and Western thinkers arrived at this insight: the attempt to avoid suffering causes more suffering than the suffering itself. “Life is suffering. The cause of suffering is attachment. The cessation of suffering comes through the elimination of attachment.” — Buddha (563-483 BCE)

The Buddha’s First Noble Truth—“life is suffering”—sounds depressing until you understand it. He’s not saying life is only suffering or that suffering is bad. He’s saying: stop being shocked that life includes pain. Stop expecting life to be smooth sailing. The suffering you’re experiencing isn’t a glitch in the system—it IS the system.

And here’s where it gets interesting: the Buddha said that most of your suffering comes from attachment—clinging to how you think things should be. You’re attached to the idea that you should be further along in life. You’re attached to that person liking you back. You’re attached to getting a certain grade.

The suffering isn’t the grade itself—it’s the gap between the grade you got and the grade you were attached to getting. The suffering isn’t the rejection—it’s the story you’re telling yourself about what the rejection means about your worth.

Now enter Nietzsche. While the Buddha says “let go of attachment,” Nietzsche says to “embrace the suffering and use it to forge yourself into something greater.” He has this concept of amor fati (love of fate) that’s like the Stoic version but more intense. “What does not kill me makes me stronger.” — Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)

Yeah, that quote is overused in gym motivational posters, but Nietzsche meant something deeper. He’s saying: hardship is raw material for becoming who you’re meant to be. That heartbreak? It’s teaching you about love and boundaries. That failure? It’s showing you what you’re really made of. That existential crisis at 3 AM? That’s you actually grappling with real questions about meaning and purpose.

His idea of the Übermensch (overman) isn’t about being better than other people—it’s about continually overcoming your own limitations, transforming your pain into wisdom, and using obstacles as opportunities to grow. Think of it like this: suffering is the weight at the gym. You don’t avoid the weight—you lift it, and that’s how you get stronger.

So here’s the synthesis: Accept that life includes suffering (Buddha). Stop making it worse by fighting reality (Stoics). And use that suffering as fuel for growth (Nietzsche).

The Existentialist Reality Check The existentialists—Sartre, Camus, Kierkegaard—basically argued that life may not have inherent meaning.

Camus wrote about the “absurd”—the tension between humans desperately seeking meaning in a universe that doesn’t provide any. His answer? Embrace the absurdity. Stop looking for some cosmic purpose that’s going to make everything make sense. Paradoxically, once you accept that nothing “matters” in some ultimate cosmic sense, you’re free to decide what matters to you. “The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.” — Albert Camus (1913-1960)

Camus wrote about Sisyphus, the Greek dude condemned to push a boulder up a hill for eternity, only to watch it roll back down, forever. It’s absurd. And yet Camus says: “One must imagine Sisyphus happy.” Why? Because the struggle itself is where happiness lives. Not in achieving some final goal, but in the process of striving.

This is comfort when you realize that you may never “arrive.” There’s no destination where you’re finally done, finally happy, finally complete. It’s all a process. And that’s okay. That’s actually beautiful.

Stop Living Someone Else’s Life You’re not actually living your own life right now. You’re living some Frankenstein version cobbled together from your parents’ expectations, society’s definitions of success, what looks good on socials, and what your peers are doing. The existentialists call this “bad faith”—pretending you don’t have a choice, playing roles rather than being yourself.

You know that voice in your head that says “I should do this” or “I’m supposed to want that”? Where do those “shoulds” come from? Are they actually YOUR values, or are they just societal programming you’ve internalized? “Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does.” — Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980)

Sartre’s point: you ARE free. You’re not trapped by your major, your past, your family’s expectations, or your own previous choices. You can change direction. You can choose differently. This is both liberating and anxiety-inducing (Kierkegaard called it “the dizziness of freedom”), but it’s the truth.

You’re going to spend your early twenties trying to make everyone else happy. You’ll pick classes to impress your parents. You’ll pursue careers because they’re “prestigious.” You’ll date people who look good on paper. You’ll curate a persona that gets social approval.

And you know what? You’ll be miserable. Because external validation is a drug—it feels good for a minute, but you need more and more of it, and it never lasts. You’ll get the internship your parents are proud of and feel… empty. You’ll get 500 likes on a post and feel… unseen.

Real happiness comes from alignment: when your outer life matches your inner truth. When what you DO reflects who you actually ARE, not who you think you should be. That’s authenticity. And it’s the only foundation for lasting happiness.

Know Thyself (Seriously, Do The Work) Socrates gave us the most important homework assignment ever: “Know thyself.” It is not some vague self-help, understand this: you CANNOT be happy if you don’t know who you actually are. “The unexamined life is not worth living.” — Socrates (470-399 BCE)

This means actually doing the work of figuring out:

  • What do you actually value (not what you’re supposed to value)?
  • What are your actual strengths (what are you naturally good at)?
  • What activities make you lose track of time?
  • What kind of person do you want to be?
  • What are your actual flaws and weaknesses (honest assessment, not an Instagram bio)?
  • What would you do if you weren’t trying to impress anyone?
  • What legacy do you want to leave?

This isn’t narcissistic navel-gazing—it’s the foundation of everything. You can’t build a happy life on someone else’s blueprint. You need to know YOUR blueprint. And yeah, this requires reflection, journaling, therapy, long walks, honest conversations, and a willingness to face uncomfortable truths about yourself. Do it anyway.