The next suitable person you’re in light conversation with, you stop suddenly in the middle of the conversation and look at the person closely and say, “What’s wrong?” You say it in a concerned way. He’ll say, “What do you mean?” You say, “Something’s wrong. I can tell. What is it?” And he’ll look stunned and say, “How did you know?” He doesn’t realize something’s always wrong, with everybody. Often more than one thing. He doesn’t know everybody’s always going around all the time with something wrong and believing they’re exerting great willpower and control to keep other people, for whom they think nothing’s ever wrong, from seeing it.
David Foster Wallace, The Pale King
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Everybody Suffers
There is surprising comfort in the notion that everybody suffers. When you are enduring your own brand of suffering, remembering that everybody else is suffering along with you, in their own particular ways, can bring some perspective to your suffering.
If you are suffering a lot, it can be helpful to know that most people also suffer a lot. A good way to identify other people who suffer is to look around you and if you see anybody, or think of any person you know, or have heard of, chances are very good that they suffer, possibly a lot. You are not alone in those feelings.
Although it is comforting to know that you are not the only one who suffers, when you have a handle on your own suffering, you realize how sad it is that so many people are suffering so much. When you feel that sadness for somebody else’s suffering, that is compassion. Even though that compassion feels like sadness, you may notice that it eases your suffering.
Your particular kind of suffering is especially difficult because you feel it directly. It has all of the complex circumstances of your life. Because it is your suffering, you are uniquely qualified to find the remedy. When you have learned how to transcend your suffering, you can use your experience of suffering and the compassion you develop to help everybody else. Please.
-Zenmister