No shame in sorrow

 Dalai Lama in one of his books mentions that if you come to live on earth you are bound to face troubles because life is endless suffering and one cannot escape it. No matter what stage in life you are in, you will face problems and obstacles. There are some who suffer more than others because their egoist minds cannot accept the suffering. While there are others who learn to deal with them. We may have many reasons for being unhappy. It could be poverty, ill health, bad reputation, a relationship issue, or anything of such kind. But to think that achieving what we think is lacking is going to alleviate our suffering is also not true. It may pull us out of a kind of problem but it will bring along with it problems of a different nature.

Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple inc.  died a billionaire at 56 years of Pancreatic Cancer and here are his last words on the sick bed:

"I reached the pinnacle of success in the business world. In others’ eyes, my life is the epitome of success.

However, aside from work, I have little joy. In the end, wealth is only a fact of life that I am accustomed to.

At this moment, lying on the sick bed and recalling my whole life, I realize that all the recognition and

wealth that I took so much pride in, have paled and become meaningless in the face of impending death.

You can hire someone to drive a car for you, make money for you — but you can not rent someone to carry the disease for you. One can find material things, but there is one thing that can not be found when it is lost — "Life".

There are many such living examples of people with envious wealth, health, beauty, and fame that go through unimaginable sufferings and cycles of depression. It can be fairly concluded that problems are going to be a long-time friend as long as we live here and like any real friend its nature will keep evolving from time to time and the art of living is trying to form a healthy relationship with this friend.

But the one thing that societies do is put a label of good and bad to the kind of suffering. Sorrow of any nature goes through the filter of social definitions of what is right and wrong. People around you come to accept your grief and support you in dealing with it if sorrow is of the good type. If not, you tend to deal alone with it, living with shame and denial from those around you. One can only control the way one reacts to a problem but the coming up of a problem is not much in our control.

Labeling and typecasting in society only make the suffering deeper for the individual who is at the receiving end of the situation. Yes, there are some problems that come to people because of something they did but here I am referring to those that one doesn't have any control over and are inflicted upon by others. But the victims stay in shame. Here are some examples:

• Being bullied due to belonging to a certain race, color, size, gender, etc. These are traits one is born with.
• Forced to mental or physical abuse in the past and successfully overcame it but ashamed of the whole event
• Having a disease of any kind
• Being jobless in spite of giving your best
• Having a certain level of intelligence
• Not being interested in certain topics
• Being cheated or ridiculed
• Having unusual preferences

These are just some examples but the list goes on. So here is what we can do. Understand that everyone is unique. Understand that everyone is trying to do their best in the situation they are in. Understand that most of us do not have control over things that happen to us but try and deal with them to the best of our capabilities. So before you put a label on someone's life, stop a little and be compassionate. You are dealing with a fellow sufferer. Be kind and gentle. Be grateful for the differences in the world that make it such a beautiful and colorful place to be in. Shun the man-made definitions of what is beautiful and what's not and accept them from the perception of the creator. Love and be loved.