Dostoyevsky on Suffering

This quote here reminds me of a time when I was running my marketing services agency.  I had many personal assistants through the decades, but my favorite one called me, in tears, one morning at home shortly before I left for the office.  Through her spasmodic whimpering she explained that a pet, a rabbit of all things, had died and that she couldn’t muster herself to come into work.

I told her that I completely understood, and said that, by all means, she should take the day off.  I went on to say, “You are a fine human being.  You’re highly intelligent and deeply compassionate.  That enables people like you to have profound life experiences that are completely unavailable to the ignorant, mean jackasses of this world.  Tears are the price that must be paid for the privilege of fully immersing ourselves in life.”

I hadn’t thought about that moment in many years, reminded only by these words from the great Dostoyevsky.