I am not here for any reason other than the simple fact that two people thought having kids would be fun.

Well said ! :smile:

What human suffering?

Everything and anything that makes us suffer and not only us, there are other living beings that suffer too.

Perhaps we can't, to be truthful.
It's the old story - if you've never had a toothache you cannot imagine or appreciate the pain of someone claiming to suffer one
.

Well i'm sure someone who never had a toothache can at least imagine what it would be like to endure one. Especially if others around them have endured one. I don't think a person needs to experience the same exact things to feel empathy towards others.

Agreed. My sense is that an empathic person can experience the suffering of another vicariously to a sufficient degree to understand the phenomenon.

Reluctantly, a few thoughts:

- I started to wonder why I am here, what I am meant to do here, at a stage of my life when I was experiencing the most success, and the least suffering

- Somebody's suffering may look as an unattainable desired situation to somebody else. Somebody's happy and purposeful life may seem a dread to somebody else.

- Each one of us creates our own reality, from our beliefs, thoughts, emotions. The more we perceive suffering, the more suffering we're exposed to.

- The nature of things determines what happens to / from those things: e.g. you can't stop smoking if you perceive yourself as a smoker who tries not to smoke. You have to perceive yourself as a non-smoker, and naturally you won't smoke (you have to change your nature).

Makes sense.

Some people are envious but if they had to walk in another person's shoes, they might think twice.

At this moment you are here to exprerience the most success and the least suffering. If it was 'meant to be' any other way it would be.

Exactly the point.

Simply, your reality is defined by your perceptions, your perceptions are defined by your beliefs and your beliefs are defined by your definitions. You have a definition of what Spirituality is to you and what you accept or reject is set against that definition.

That's more of a definition than the nature of things, and you don't have to perceive yourself as anything in particular. The nature of things in this case is that if you smoke you have an addiction, then you define yourself as a smoker and that creates your reality. When you redefine yourself as someone who is going to stop smoking/a non-smoker that becomes your reality, and the smoking stops. Been there, done that.