Today, we teach our children that if you are an effective person, you can control your life. This modern image portrays “winners” as people who have it all together. You are not supposed to have internal conflicts, stress, or anxiety — that means you are incompetent. You’re a loser…. But this perspective flattens life. It denies the possibility of finding a deeper meaning to your experience. If you measure your self-worth and effectiveness according to these superficial cultural standards, then each time you suffer you are forced to interpret suffering as humiliation. Why would you choose to acknowledge suffering if it only stands for failure?

Our culture’s debasement of suffering represents a major loss to us. It denies the validity of many of the significant emotional events in our lives. It narrows life such that we are constantly reacting to a set of questions: How do I get and keep what’s pleasant and avoid or get rid of that which is unpleasant? Am I winning or losing? Am I being praised or blamed?

Philip Moffitt, How Suffering Got a Bad Name