i will suffer you

Today’s story is about a man who can see into the future. The passing of time holds no surprises for him. So when his fiancé walked out on him, you were very surprised. “Did you not see the future? Didn’t you know she was going to leave you when you met her?” With a decent amount of pain in his eyes, he assures you “Before I met her I knew this day would come. When I was young I looked deep into my future. I played out all the possibilities in my mind. When I was done, my heart drowned in sorrow. I realized I could never love a woman the way I wanted to. Before I met my ex-fiancé I saw she was going to leave me. Then maybe out of sheer boredom I looked deeper into my future. I looked at what would happen after she left me. Then I comprehended something amazing… after she left me I would be able to meet a woman I could love the way I wanted to. I realized I needed to suffer the bad, so I could truly cherish the good.”

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The bad relationships we suffer make the good ones all the more worthwhile!

try harder

You really enjoyed being a grief counselor last week, so today you’re a psychiatrist. Luke and Paul are two very unique individuals. Luke has been diagnosed with chronic depression, whereas Paul suffers from chronic depression. Yes it’s the same thing, but Luke refuses to suffer from this.

Paul walks into your office and lies down on your stereotypical shrink couch. He explains to you in meticulous detail how low his serotonin levels are. He needs you to understand how depressed he is. He expresses his “dark thoughts” and how easy it is for him to give in. When he takes some time to breathe, you interject with some positive thoughts. Immediately you are shot down “Doc, you don’t understand how difficult it is to be me. All I want to do is go lie in a ditch somewhere and stop breathing.” When the session is finally over you almost want to go join Paul in that ditch of his.

The next day you page through Luke’s medical report. You shudder when you notice that his serotonin levels are even worse than Paul’s… you’re not very optimistic about today. Luke walks in, gives you a courteous greeting and lies down. During the next 40 minutes Luke will challenge your perception of human strength. He will tell you how painfully he breaks, but he won’t stop talking until he tells you how he gets up afterwards. He will describe the darkness and how it swallows him whole. Then he’ll tell you how he fights with tears streaming down his face. He will not go quietly into that dark night! You detect a hint of pride each time he talks about overcoming his darkness. He smiles “If my condition has taught me one thing, it’s that I have to work so much harder just to smile. But what I taught myself is… I can smile… and if I try really, really hard, I can laugh!”

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We all have weaknesses; do you use yours as an excuse to do badly, or motivation to try harder?

break me

Today you’re a grief counselor. Matt is coming in later today, he lost his mother 3 weeks ago. Out there in the real world he’s a rock on which his family rests. But in here, he breaks. In two hours Matt will walk into your office with all the strength anyone could ever ask for. He’s going sit down and say these words: “I don’t want to talk today, I just want to cry for a while” Don’t do anything, just sit there and watch the man become a boy. Thirty minutes after, he will get up and smile at you. I hope you’re ready for today; because you’re not going to believe how powerful Matt is when he leaves your office!

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We all need to break now and then. Find a safe place, and don’t hold back!

feed me

In today’s story you’ll play the role of a drug addict. I’m sorry it has to come to this but I’m running out of ideas so please go with it... Thanx.

It’s Friday morning. Work seems to suffocate you, but you don’t mind all that much. Tonight, the whole world and everything in it will fade away. Tonight all your problems and fears will slide off the canvas that is reality. That is the only thought that keeps you sane. That is the only truth that you care to believe.

The needle glides with pleasure into your vein. The little syringe is filled with promises of a painless world. As you press down, you smile. This is life! This is all you will ever need. The whole world can go to hell as long as you can inject meaning directly into your soul. That is what you’re doing now, isn’t it?

It’s Monday morning and you feel a little worse than last Monday. Each week seems to bring with it new levels of despair. Each time you awake from your slumber, the world seems a little worse off than before. You struggle valiantly through the week, but Thursday night, you finally fall prey to your hunger. You close your eyes and drown in your heaven. This is the reason you were born. Your entire life was only to get you to this point. You say a quick prayer and thank God for tonight…

It’s Monday again… Why are you still alive? Why is your body so damn resilient? You weren’t supposed to wake up. You get up and get dressed. You pretend you’re ready for life, but you’re not. You're completely empty. You sit on your bed and rest your head in your hands. Tears slowly roll down your arms. It’s not enough anymore. The highs can’t sustain you anymore. You feel like a starving kid in Africa who barely eats once a week. You grab an old syringe, fill it with air and inject yourself. Either the hunger kills you, or you do. As your body starts to convulse, you realize your soul is as empty as the syringe. You thought you were filling it, instead… your habit kept you occupied while your soul slowly drained away.

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We all attempt to fill our souls with meaning. The question is… are you still hungry when morning comes? Are you really filling your soul with meaning, or are you just occupying yourself, so that you don’t notice how empty your soul really is?

your worth

Today you will risk your life to find out who you really are. Hidden dangerously deep in a magical forest lies the answer to the question that’s haunting you: how much are you worth?

For the last 4 months you’ve been preparing for this journey. It’s not enough time, but you can’t wait anymore. You desperately need to know if what lies inside your soul is sacred, or sickening.

With great trouble you force your way through the thick forest. Every now and then a shimmering fairy shoots past you… warning you of the trouble ahead. You press on.

You push some branches out of the way. A black panther greets you with a roar. Your heart thumps against your chest. His eyes are filled with fear… He pleads with you to turn around. Still you press on.

You found it! Inside the cave is the answer you seek. But outside, evil lingers. Waiting for you to come just a little closer and give up your right to be alive. Nevertheless… you press on.

Pain shoots through your body in a clean and eloquent wave. Your body falls effortlessly to the ground. Mercifully, the 4 months preparation affords you the opportunity to get up again. In agony… you press on.

You hear a crackling sound like a tree bending too far. Your legs burst forth in pain, as they shatter from the inside. Slowly you crawl into the cave, you can barely move but you press on.

Out of the darkness an outstretched hand appears. You reach out; the moment you touch you’re invigorated with energy and love. You have no idea who this hand belongs to, but you can't help falling deeper in love every passing second. You feel safe, secure, special, happy, blessed, and most of all... you feel loved.


As you eyes adjust to the dark, a face emerges… it can’t be… it’s you! Suddenly it all makes sense. Your value is not found in you, but in the people who love you. This magical place shows you what you are worth, by showing you how you look through the eyes of your loved ones. You stare at yourself. You feel what they feel… Finally you know how sacred your soul really is!

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Think about it for a while... who would you see if you walked in there?

diamonds

You’re going to lose your house; you can’t afford it anymore. How are you going to tell your kids? A friend calls with urgency in his voice, asking you to meet up with him. He looks a bit worried when you get there. He tells you about an immediate job that’ll sort out all your financial problems. After just two short weeks, everything can be sorted. The problem is, half of the people who accept this job, will be dead in two weeks. You don’t like gambling with your life, but how do you tell your kids they don’t have a home anymore. Then again, how does someone tell them they don’t have you anymore?

The job requires robots to go deep into an unsafe mine. The problem is a robot costs 2 million Dollars, and they lose a lot of them due to the unstable conditions. It’s highly illegal to send people down there, but it’s much cheaper. That’s where you come in. The company has a two week gap where no one will inspect their operations. In those two weeks they send as many desperate people down there as they can find. This time around you’ll be one of them… You take the job.

The two weeks that follow breaks you in ways you didn’t know you could break. Besides the close calls you suffer, you witness as the lives of three people are ripped from this world. The last three days are the worst. You are responsible for bringing up the bodies of the fallen. You have to clean up the evidence that humans were ever down there. Your soul has never been torn to shreds like this. Dying seems like a beautiful release right now. Your heart doesn’t want to beat anymore. It’s pleading with you to take your last breath. You can’t imagine suffering more than this! But it’s worth it. That’s what you tell yourself. You have to believe that this is worth it.

You walk out of the mine for the last time. You want to smile, but you’re completely empty. You collapse in the locker room with the seven others that survived. Your supervisor hands each one of you a bag with your spoils. It’s not worth it! You didn’t really allow hell into your heart for a little bag of money, did you? It’s over now, but it was never worth it! One of the guys you worked with sits down next to you. He hands you his bag. “You need this more than I do”. Your eyes shoot open, WTF! “How can you suffer hell and then give me your money?”He shrugs, “I run a very successful company, I don’t need the money.”

You stare at him, you can’t find the words. The shock of his words seems to nudge your heart back to life. “WTF is wrong with you? Why are you here?” He stands up with pride and power (where the hell did he find that???) “I have all the physical stuff I want, but one morning I looked in the mirror and hated what I saw. Pressure creates diamonds. Each time I walk away from something like this, I’m stronger, more beautiful, becoming more like a stunning diamond. Each time I suffer this, I love myself more.”

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You can’t go through this life without suffering now and then. The questions is, do your troubles break you, or strengthen you? You might not realize this, but that decision is yours to make.

every day

You smile a lot. But you rarely mean it. You pretend that you’re living. But you’re barely surviving. Each morning you search the depths of your soul desperately seeking a tiny drop of strength to make it through the day. You can’t go on like this. Every day, there’s a little less in your soul. Every day it’s harder to find a reason to get up. You’re on your last few breaths…

A week ago a friend emailed you and asked for your help. His parents are going away, and he needs to take care of his mentally handicapped brother. You don’t know why, but you said you’ll help him today. You can’t think anymore, you can’t make a decision anymore. You just say yes when you think someone expects you to say yes. You’re a meaningless piece of scrap paper being tossed around in a blizzard. You’re not in control of your life anymore.

You get to your friend's place; he’s happy to see you and introduces you to his brother. The rest of the day is a bit different that you expected. His brother is a delightful kid. When he laughs you can hear that nothing in this world bothers him. He doesn’t lie in bed at night and tortures himself. He has someone who takes care of him… he has someone that loves him exceedingly. What more can he possibly ask for?

You stare at your friend as he plays with his brother: “You seem to take such great care of your bother. Did you really need my help today” He looks up, “No, I didn’t need your help.” “Then why did you ask me to come help you?” He smiles at you with loving eyes:

“Because you needed my help.”

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We are our own best teachers. If you need help, give all the help you have.

For some reason we don’t always value ourselves enough. The greatest strength we have is seldom for ourselves. So if you’re feeling weak today, go be strong for someone else.