Suffering: A Valuable Ingredient for the Good Life?

“Suddenly some force struck him in the chest and side, making it still harder to breathe, and he fell through the hole and there at the bottom was a light.” Leo Tolstoy, The Death of Ivan Ilyich

You probably didn’t open this blog hoping to read about suffering.

Most of us don’t go looking for it. But it finds us anyway—in the form of grief, illness, betrayal, failure, loneliness, or a phone call in the middle of the night that changes everything.

The strange thing is, even though we’d never choose it, suffering might be one of the most important ingredients in what we call the good life. Not because it’s good in itself—but because of what it can grow in us if we let it.

I know that might sound a little too tidy if you’re in the middle of a loss right now. But stay with me. This is not a pep talk. It’s something older and deeper. Something the research, the ancient wisdom, and even our own stories keep circling back to.

I started thinking about this today because I was reading the last paper of Dr. Paul Wong before he died. Wong lived with a tough to treat cancer for some years. He kept writing, researching, trying to wake us up to the importance of understanding the value of suffering and dark times. He's one of the world’s leading psychologists on meaning. I "knew" him because in past years he posted a lot of his thoughts on a forum I am on. The last paper was given freely by his followers after he died. (I couldn't help but get a bit choked up as I read it even though it was an academic paper because I knew that Dr. Wong was an amazing example of allowing suffering to push him to what I will call "self transcendent" growth.)

In the paper Wong points to the story of The Death of Ivan Ilyich, written by Tolstoy. It’s not a long read, but it’s one that stays with you. You know that if you've ever read it.

Ivan had done all the “right” things. He followed the rules. Climbed the ladder. Decorated his home just so. But when illness came—and with it the prospect of death—he realized something terrifying: “What if my whole life has been wrong?”

On his deathbed, in great pain and facing the truth of who he’d been, Ivan does something surprising. He stops pretending. He softens. He lets go of appearances and finds—at the very end—a kind of peace. A kind of love. A kind of life that finally felt real.

That story isn’t just literature. It’s real life. Researchers Richard Tedeschi and Lawrence Calhoun studied thousands of people who lived through traumas—serious ones. Things like losing a child, surviving cancer, or being caught in war zones. And what they found startled them.

Many of these people didn’t just recover. They actually grew. Not in spite of their suffering, but somehow through it. They experienced what’s called post-traumatic growth. They found a new sense of purpose. Their relationships deepened. They became more grateful, more grounded, more spiritually awake. Stronger in a quiet, honest way.

And then there’s a finding from psychologist Philip Zimbardo that made me stop and stare a couple of days ago when I listened to one of his last talks on The Heroic Imagination Project. (Zimbardo died a couple of years ago, some of his research is priceless and incredible. He's probably best known for his prisoner experiments at Stanford.)

Zimbardo's research showed that people who have experienced trauma are over three times more likely to step up and help someone else. What?!

People who have experienced and survived trauma are over three times more likely to do something heroic and to volunteer! I just have to write that again. Because it just jostles my brain!

I also recently re-watched the video of Wesley Autry, an African- American young father who sees a person having an epileptic fit on the subway platform. The man who is epileptic falls down onto the subway train tracks.

Autry turns to one of the 75 bystanders and asks them feverishly to take care of his two little girls as he throws himself down on the tracks. Pulls the man between the tracks and lays on top of him as the train passes over them with only a half of an inch to spare. BTW, African American men are in general more likely to take heroic actions.

And the volunteering, what are we talking about? Maybe it's to sit on the bench next to a hurting person and say, “I’ve been there.” That's why so many trust the Zimbabwe grandmothers. As my gkids say, "Of course the grandmothers can help others who are suffering. They have seen it all."

Suffering, it turns out, might be the training ground for courage and compassion!

But not all pain becomes wisdom. Not automatically. That’s where the work of Gabor Maté offers something we need. He’s a physician who has spent a lifetime working with people in the hardest places—addiction, poverty, chronic illness, and trauma. What he says cuts to the heart of the matter: trauma isn’t just what happened to us. It’s what happened inside us when the world didn’t feel safe, when we felt unseen, unloved, or overwhelmed.

“The essence of trauma,” Maté writes, “is disconnection from the self. And healing is the reconnection.”

So, if suffering splits us apart, how do we let it stitch us back together? How do we suffer well?

It starts, oddly enough, with not trying so hard to escape it. Feel what you feel. You don’t have to pretend. Cry if you need to. Be angry. Be afraid. Be still. You’re not weak for feeling. You’re human.

Then, when you’re ready, name what hurt you. Whether to a friend, a counselor, a journal, or to God—naming our pain helps it loosen its grip. It also opens the door to the next step, which isn’t necessarily about finding a silver lining, but about finding meaning. You can ask gently: What can I learn from this? Who am I becoming because of this?

And here’s something we tend to forget when we’re hurting: helping someone else helps us, too. The more we help, the more we heal. Our suffering becomes bearable when it becomes useful.

Finally, let the story change. You are not just a character in your suffering. You are also the storyteller. The meaning-maker. The author. And you’re allowed to grow past the pain.

If we think the good life is only made of easy days and light hearts, we’re setting ourselves up to feel like failures the moment life gets hard. But if we know that heartache, illness, and struggle are part of the soil from which courage and kindness grow—we can walk through suffering with less shame, more grace.

And maybe, like Ivan Ilyich, we’ll find that it’s not too late to live more truthfully, more tenderly, more awake.

Maybe we’ll become the kind of people who don’t just survive suffering—but who shine because of it.

I recently listened to a friend tell about her childhood. Her family experienced a great deal of poverty. What did she learn after looking back on her story? She says she learned the value of money - how to stretch it and use it wisely. She's also a very compassionate person.

Seems to me that ageing is a type of trauma. We seem to lose parts of ourselves.

My mother told me that, "Toward your later years you have to be prepared to accept a humbler version of yourself if you are to age well and die well." I think she meant you must learn to transcend your ego. Learn to surrender to what life may offer in those years.

We know that at some point we must learn to accept compassion and help from others. Many people cannot stand the idea of being vulnerable or accept care from another; it's one of their worst nightmares about ageing.

Now after reading some of Paul Wong's work, it makes me kinda look forward to how it will go as I lose more of the old June. I know there will be some grieving, but what might I (what might you) gain; how might I (how might you) grow even in those very last moments of life like Ivan Ilyich?

How might it be for our journey together to look positively at our suffering (our big or small letter T or t Traumas or traumas) and find what they offer us? Think about their value? How might it go for us if we have the courage to choose a meaningful, full, and rich good life - one of mature happiness in which we learn and grow from both the light and the dark... right up until the last moment?

Postscript: Here's an excerpt from Dr. Wong's last paper where he tells the story of Joni and quotes palliative care doctor, Byock, in urging us to tell the stories of patients who die well...especially those who may have previously considered suicide because of their situation.

They cited Byock (1994) as proposing: “we must tell the stories of our patients who have died well, especially those who had previously considered or who might have committed suicide.” (p. 6). Joni Eareckson Tada (1992) is such an example. She was a quadriplegic for almost thirty years as a result of a traffic accident. She stated that her ability to minister to others in pain and suffering provided meaning in her life: “The longer I hung in there through the process of suffering, the stronger the weave in the fabric of meaning.” (p. 85).

Thank you, Dr. Wong, for your relentless life's work to make our lives more meaningful and full and good. Despite that many of us had closed eyes, you pointed out over and over again the positive role that suffering can play in our lives if we allow it to nudge new buds of growth and meaning. You showed us in your own life...and death.