Two Possibilities: Happiness Or Suffering

In the famous interview with President Obama, he was asked to choose between light and darkness. With empathy in his voice, he replied that happiness is more important than suffering. As a person who loves reading and philosophy, I think about this quote often as I ponder what will happen in my life if I follow one path or the other. There are two paths before me: happiness or suffering. I'm not saying that there's something wrong with choosing suffering; it's just different from what most people find enjoyable and fulfilling which is why we have to make a choice.

I have been thinking about this for quite a while now, probably too long. I haven't made my choice yet but I think it's time to write about it since I may soon have to choose between the two paths (which one will be suffering and which one will be happiness?). Though I believe that life is full of both happiness and suffering, there are times when one dominates our lives more than the other and we struggle with how to live in this world where we often don't know which path or direction we should follow. As children, most of us want just to stay at home and enjoy our parents' company. But reality slaps our faces and we realize that there are things outside of our homes that we could enjoy and learn from as well.

I think it's also important to note that the paths I'm talking about aren't necessarily "right" or "wrong". As a matter of fact, I don't think any path, whether it be happiness or suffering, is inherently "wrong" either but it all depends on how you interpret life. A lot of people will say that if you choose happiness over suffering, you'll be taking the easy way out and if you choose suffering over happiness, you'll be forced to confront reality. But what if that's not true? What if the harder path is actually filled with happiness, which in turn wouldn't make it the "harder" path? I think this is a question we have to ask ourselves. Why are we so quick to assume that happiness entails less work than suffering? It's easy to think that way because suffering has more harshness and more pain attached to it but doesn't suffering also have more joy attached to it too?

My critique of the quote by President Obama is this: Why should there be a competition between light and darkness anyway? It seems like life would be easier for us if we didn't have a choice since one of them will always be there. When we are young, as I mentioned earlier, it seems as if choice is scarce. We only have what's around us to choose from but when we grow older and start to see the bigger picture, we realize that choice can be overwhelming at times. I'll never forget the time when I was sitting in English class and my teacher told us that there are more choices than we could possibly imagine out there. She asked us what our favorite ice cream flavor was and most of the class said "chocolate" or "vanilla". She said that there's actually a lot of other flavors out there (around thirty flavors) so there's more to life than just chocolate or vanilla. In that moment, I realized that there are so many more things to experience in this world than just chocolate or vanilla. This realization is something to be thankful for because sometimes we get too stuck inside a certain box and forget how big our choices can be.

When you realize how much choice is out there, you realize that the simple choice of just choosing one or the other may not be as significant as you thought. You also see how much suffering there is in life that people tend to run away from it by choosing happiness. I'm sure everyone has had a friend who is depressed and chooses to live with their pain instead of seeking help from others. I have a friend who tried to commit suicide but thankfully she was unsuccessful at it. Because of her choice to live with her pain instead of asking someone for help, she actually made her situation worse. After that failed attempt, she tried again to commit suicide but this time was successful. Why? Maybe because the same choice went away and there was nothing else left to do other than death. When you think about it, there are "light" sides and "dark" sides to both happiness and suffering so I don't think that it's fair to say that one is better than the other. Both can be equally bad or good depending on how you look at life and neither one is inherently better or worse than the other.

I could go on and on about the beauty of both happiness and suffering but I think that's enough for now. I don't know yet which path I will choose but maybe you can help me to find out. What do you think? Do you believe that suffering is always bad? Should we always run from it? Are there other paths out there besides just happiness or is the choice black and white? Do you agree with me that choice can lead us to both happiness and suffering? If so, how do we make the choice so we can be happy in life, instead of just being happy or suffering in life?

Note: You can read a similar article by my friend (and fellow writer) Ashley on this point here.

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Tagged: choice, happiness, suffering, white house blog, white house website, world happiness report 2013, young people unhappy with choices in life, young people unhappy with choices in life essay contest 2012-2013, young people unhappy with choices in life essay contest submission deadline 2013-2014 updates and news about the 2013-2014 young people unhappy with choices in life essay contest for tweens and teens ages 11 to 18 years old. letters to the editor are welcome. letters should be 250-700 words. they should not include any of the following: personal information (name, address, phone number, etc.), school name, school grade level, religion or religious affiliation, political beliefs. submissions must be emailed directly to youngpeopleunhappywithchoices@gmail.com by 11:59 pm est on April 25th 2013 to be considered for publication. the winning submission will be announced at http://www.whitehouseblog.com/young-people-unhappy-choices-life-2013 on May 15th 2013. the winner will receive a $250 gift card to amazon.com. Thank you for your interest in young people unhappy with choices in life and this contest!

The White House blog is a venue for publication of news and information from the president of the United States and his administration and from the White House Office of Communications. The blog provides a forum for readers to share their views on various issues, as well as a way to stay updated on Presidential activities.

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Young people unhappy with choices in life essay contest 2013-2014 updates and news about the 2013-2014 young people unhappy with choices in life essay contest for tweens and teens ages 11 to 18 years old. letters to the editor are welcome. letters should be 250-700 words. they should not include any of the following: personal information (name, address, phone number, etc.), school name, school grade level, religion or religious affiliation, political beliefs. submissions must be emailed directly to youngpeopleunhappywithchoices@gmail.com by 11:59 pm est on may 15th 2013 to be considered for publication. the winning submission will be announced at http://www.whitehouseblog.