We’re born, we suffer, we die.

Listening to 21st-century creative, a new podcast I discovered through a different one when another writer whose opinion I value mentioned it was one of their favorites.

A story within a story within a story?

Either way, an interview with a British journalist turned author put me into an introspective mood.

We’re born, we suffer, we die.

All of life is spent grappling with this concept. No matter what else, each person who enters this world will go through these three steps.

Some get more of the suffering bit than others, but every single step must be traversed at least once in every human existence.

Some days, the suffering seems too much.

Some people get more than their fair share, while others seem to breeze through life a smile on their face at all times.

Can one person ever know the suffering of another?

Is all suffering the same?

Or does it actually vary by degrees?

Can the pain of death equal the pain someone else feels when they lose a job?

Or are some pains deeper, regardless of who feels them?

The acidic burn of disappointment–

does it equal the pangs of unrequited love?

What about the physical?

Does that suffering approach

the existential crisis of a 35-year-old

who doesn’t know what they want to be

when they grow up?

Or are some things simply unable to be compared?

It’s funny, because listening to the words of another as they delve into these concepts, I somehow feel my burdens lift,

knowing that through their words,

we all have difficulties we must traverse.

Maybe my suffering is more intense,

perhaps not.

There simply is no way to know

when we can only experience life through our own eyes.

The one thing I do know is that today,

as I feel the sun on my face

and the gentle hum of my tires on the road

while my princess plays

with a brand-new Polly pocket that I envy her for;

in this moment,

there’s only joy

as an unseasonable warmth reminds me

there is more to life than suffering and death

These are the moments which we strive for,

that make life worthwhile,

That make us hold on

despite the moments of suffering

in between our beginnings and endings.