Suffer Now or Suffer Later | #68

By Armaan Athwal

Today's Overview:

• Facing voluntary hardship rewires your brain to handle real adversity

• Discomfort teaches you that you are capable, and capability kills anxiety

• Quote of the day

The Choice That Prepare You

Suffering is inevitable. But not all suffering is the same.

There’s suffering that happens to you—unchosen suffering. The loss of a loved one, an injury, a sudden financial collapse. It’s the kind that hits without warning, forcing you to endure, whether you’re ready or not.

Then there’s the suffering you choose. Waking up before dawn to train. Pushing through the discomfort of learning something difficult. Confronting fears instead of avoiding them. This kind isn’t forced on you, you step into it willingly.

At first glance, these two seem unrelated. One is imposed by life, the other is self-imposed. But they are deeply connected. The suffering you choose is the only thing that prepares you for the suffering you don’t.

This method of controlling your exposure to discomfort builds resilience over time. The military uses it to prepare soldiers for combat. Athletes use it to push past their physical limits. Even therapists use it to help patients reframe anxiety and trauma.

The principle is simple, small doses of chosen suffering train the nervous system to handle higher levels of stress. Your brain adapts, learning that difficulty isn’t a signal to panic but something it can work through.

Studies show that people who regularly challenge themselves, through exercise, fasting, cold exposure, or intense learning, have lower baseline stress levels. Their bodies and minds handle adversity better because they’ve been conditioned to do so.

On the flip side, when life is too comfortable, the threshold for discomfort shrinks. The slightest inconvenience becomes overwhelming. Without chosen suffering, unchosen suffering becomes unbearable.

And when suffering arrives uninvited, people break under its weight. Anxiety skyrockets. Depression takes hold. A minor setback feels catastrophic because the mind has never been tested in real conditions.

But there’s a way out.

If you make discomfort a daily practice, you become the type of person who isn’t destroyed by the unexpected.

Instead you will be rewired to handle the anxiety and the depression. These difficulties teach your mind that effort leads to progress, replacing the helplessness of anxiety with a sense of control and purpose. Over time, this changes your response to hardship, instead of shutting down when life gets hard, you learn to meet it head-on.

Wake up early when you don’t want to. Do the workout when your body resists. Have the hard conversation instead of avoiding it. These small, voluntary struggles stack over time. They make you strong before life forces you to be.

Because one day, suffering will come. And when it does, you’ve built resistance and you will already know how to handle it.

Quote of the Day

“The only way you can prepare yourself for unchosen suffering is with chosen suffering.” - Chris Williamson