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@ LeviWritesBooks
2025-05-06 18:05:29
There is no suffering in Heaven, and yet people still grow and learn there. Therefore, suffering and pain are not a prerequisite to growth.
If people grow after having experienced suffering, it's because when they experienced suffering they used it as their motivation to ask the question, "How do I need to change? What do I need to learn?" Suffering in this case is simply a motivator, and often times, a motivator to simply stop the suffering, but the suffering was never a prerequisite to personal growth. They could have made that inquiry before they encountered suffering.
There are many people who, having experienced suffering, do not change but actually get worse in terms of healthiness and functionality because they aren't willing to ask, "How can I change and grow?"
The fundamental prerequisite to personal growth is the willingness to ask, and to actually ask, "How can I grow?" And then to investigate that question in progressively more granularity, over and over, forever, in a quest for meaning, on the path to character and competence development.
This path does not require suffering, but merely humility and curiosity and a focus on what's important and meaningful and true.
But the dysfunctional worship of suffering and pain as God, is not good, nor necessary. God Himself does not will suffering and pain, and He doesn't worship them either.