Chapter 16: A Time to Weep and a Time to Laugh, Or, the Necessity of Suffering Even As We Live Happily Ever After

Abstract

Nations that lose, in a single year, thousands of their citizens to drug overdose or suicide are nations with many citizens ill equipped to handle suffering. While this effect may seem a matter of public health, there is no policy, no decree, no amount of taxation or spending, that can teach individual persons to bear suffering. That kind of instruction best comes from families and, to a certain extent, educators. The family provides a vital and unique function in providing each member a sense of belonging. Through this sense of belonging, family members gain resilience—the ability to weather the trials and sufferings that are inevitably part of any human existence. Educators can complement the family, serving as role models themselves, and showing students examples of historical and contemporary figures who have overcome severe trials and lived lives of great purpose.