So, someone came right out and asked,

*What is the Harsh Truth of LIFE?*


Simple.

Cruel people are weak. Kind people are strong. Almost all of us are
suffering to a certain extent. The weak ones attempt to mitigate their
suffering by inflicting emotional injuries on others, either directly or
through the promulgation of malicious gossip  . Strong ones, recognizing
that suffering is nearly ubiquitous, not only refrain from the practice of
cruelty, but actively seek to reduce the suffering in others.

So one should derive a great deal of solace from the following corollaries
predicated on the first statement.

   - You’ve never been mistreated by a strong person
   - You are at your strongest when you opt not to respond in kind to
   cruelty. At these times, you decide to behave like an adult in reaction to
   childishness.
   - Our adrenal glands are larger than our prefrontal cortices. A kind,
   rational person almost always engages the latter. Engaging the former is
   much easier, hence its appeal to the weak.

Most of the answers offered in response to this question are crafted with
the intent to intensify YOUR suffering. You know: the ones that obliquely
or overtly attempt to affirm the preposterous and highly injurious negative
thoughts we harbor about ourselves.   Fortunately, these answers are both
absurd and based on the American notion that we are not actually human
beings, but commodities of ever decreasing value.

I wish that Thich Nhat Hahn, pictured below, could answer this question.
Although he is no longer with us in this form, he might have said that we
all suffer, but with the acknowledgement that we are all connected, not
only to each other, but to all life on Earth, and through the practice of
mindfulness we can know the joy of being fully alive in every moment.

The harsh truth is that we’re so conditioned to think of ourselves as
products and to loathe ourselves for our perceived deficiencies that we
entirely miss out on the rapturous experience of simply being alive in this
world.

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