The Difference Between Chosen Suffering and Unchosen Sufficiency

3min Snip

00:00

Play full episode

Summary

Transcript

Episode notes

Suffering that you can control, versus just happens to you. And then the experience of it, verses afterwards, when you look back on it. So let's cut at those two ways. Unchosen suffering is much more of a mixed bag. You choose as kind of an investment in the future where what you rience pain now gives your life meaning and shape and texture and importance. This s i've been accused of making counterrtutive claims in my career. But this is not one of them. Bad stuff is afor you. Om.

We go to movies that make us cry, or scream, or gag. We poke at sores, eat spicy foods, immerse ourselves in hot baths, run marathons. Some of us even seek out pain and humiliation in sexual role-play. Why do we so often seek out physical pain and emotional turmoil? Where do these seemingly perverse appetites come from? In his latest book, The Sweet Spot: The Pleasures of Suffering and the Search for Meaning, Bloom aims to understand how people find meaning in their lives, and, moreover, to explore what he calls, “the sweet spot” — the proper balance between pleasure and suffering. As one of the world’s leading psychologists, drawing on groundbreaking findings from psychology and brain science, Bloom shows how the right kind of suffering sets the stage for enhanced pleasure.