Why Me? Changing the Question in the Face of Suffering

For me, suffering can take at least two forms.

There is physical suffering, connected to the body: illness, cancer, or a pain that limits our daily lives. Then there is inner suffering, involving the mind, our emotions, and the wounds that other people often cannot see.

These are probably not the only possible forms of suffering, but they are the ones that come most readily to mind at this moment.

When we encounter a physical or psychological problem, our first impulse is often to reject it or run away from it. We do not want to feel pain. We do not want anything that disrupts our lives, changes our plans, or forces us to stop.

This is a deeply human reaction.

Through medicine, scientific research, data analysis and, today, artificial intelligence, we can prevent many risks and confront problems that once seemed impossible to solve. We can reduce the probability of certain accidents, identify some illnesses earlier, and develop better treatments for many physical and psychological conditions.

But we cannot eliminate every problem.

Sometimes we solve one difficulty only to discover another. We try to understand reality, the human body, the mind, and the systems in which we live, yet we repeatedly encounter the limits of our knowledge.

That is when certain questions begin to emerge:

Why do pain and suffering exist?
Why does death exist?
Why did this happen specifically to me?

As I have written before, I do not believe there is a theory or formula capable of perfectly resolving every human problem.

That does not make our efforts useless.

A medicine can have side effects and still be extremely valuable. Amoxicillin and other antibiotics have transformed the treatment of many infections, even though they are not without risks and must be used correctly with medical guidance.

The fact that something is imperfect does not mean it has no value.

Medical progress has not removed human fragility, but it has allowed many people to live longer and to face illnesses that were once far more dangerous.

Recognising the limits of medicine, technology and human knowledge does not mean giving up. It means continuing to search for solutions without pretending that we can control everything.

Changing the question

At the beginning of my experience, I repeatedly asked questions such as:

Why me?
Why do I have this difficulty while others do not?
Why was I born into a family with fewer economic opportunities?
Why must I live with these particular limitations?

I do not think these questions are wrong or shameful. They arise from real pain. Sometimes we need to say them simply to vent, to give a voice to the anger, frustration and sense of injustice we carry within us.

Over time, however, I realised that when I kept repeating them only to compare my life with the lives of others, they stopped being genuine questions. They became a constant complaint.

They allowed me to release some of my pain, but they did not help me understand it or face it. They gave me no direction. Instead, they kept me trapped in the same comparison: other people have what I do not have; other people can do what I cannot.

The problem, then, was not asking, “Why me?” The problem was remaining trapped inside that question, repeating it endlessly and waiting for an answer that perhaps no one could ever give me.

Perhaps we should not stop asking questions. But we must learn to recognise when a question comes from a genuine desire to understand and when it has become nothing more than a way of venting or complaining.

And at some point, we must find the courage to change the question.

Instead of asking only:

Why is my life not like everyone else’s?

we might begin to ask:

What can I do from within the life I actually have?
What possibilities are still open to me?
What abilities can I continue to develop?
What kind of help do I need?
What can I change, and what must I learn to accept?

Accepting that we were born into a family with fewer resources does not mean saying that every inequality is just. Nor does it mean giving up on improving our circumstances.

It means beginning with reality rather than living only through comparison with a life we were never given.

The same is true of illness, disability and psychological difficulty. Accepting a condition does not mean considering it good, desirable or free from pain. It means recognising that, at least for now, it forms part of our story.

Only from within that reality can we begin to see more clearly what we still possess: the abilities we can develop, the relationships that can sustain us, the limits we must respect, and the possibilities we had not yet noticed.

Each of us resembles other people, but no person is completely identical to another. Comparison can therefore help us understand certain things, but it can also become a prison.

Suffering is not good in itself

I do not believe that suffering is automatically positive or necessary for growth.

Sometimes suffering simply wounds us. It requires care, time, attention and the help of other people. We should not romanticise it, nor tell those who suffer that they merely need to become stronger.

Yet when suffering is faced honestly, and not entirely alone, it can reveal something to us.

It can show us that we are not capable of everything. It can force us to stop and look more carefully at who we are. It can reveal our abilities, our weaknesses, our needs and the boundaries we would often prefer to ignore.

Accepting our limits does not mean surrendering.

It means understanding where we are, what we can change, what needs to be treated, what must be grieved, and where we can begin again.

Perhaps growth does not mean becoming invulnerable.

Perhaps it means learning to live more truthfully within our fragility.