Betsy GuerraBilingual Keynote Speaker, Psychotherapist/Coach, Author, Leadership Training and Life Coach Certification

Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional. —Haruki Murakami

28 Jul 2025 · 1 min

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A short spoken YouTube piece by Betsy Guerra centered on the distinction between pain and suffering, echoing the Haruki Murakami aphorism. Guerra argues pain is an inevitable part of being human and can be a sign of being alive and capable of love, while suffering is described as pain without hope — a choice that keeps a person stuck.

Chapters

There's a difference between pain and suffering. Pain is inevitable. You're human, you're gonna feel it. And that's a great thing because that means you're blessed to love and to have and to experience all this goodness of life. Now, suffering, which is pain without hope, pain as the destination, that is optional. It's a choice. Every time we declare, I'm never gonna be happy again, we are choosing to stay in the pain with a hope, which is suffering. That is no path anywhere. That's when you feel stuck.