Self-Inflicted Afflictions

The other night, after a fit of unsuccessful attempts to dislodge the steak from my esophagus, I commented that it's staggering how many of life's problems are caused by our own stupidity. How many times had I been told to take small bites and chew thoroughly? Yet, I made the dumb move of swallowing something that I couldn't get down, and that then refused to come back up. That was an unpleasant experience, and it was all my fault.

Life is full of unpleasant experiences. Sometimes, they're caused by natural circumstances. Sometimes it rains when you don't want it to. Sometimes it doesn't rain when you need it to. That's just part of how the world works, and there's nothing we can do about that.

Sometimes, life's unpleasantries are caused by other people. Often, people, intentionally or not, make our lives more difficult, just as I kept Mom in the hospital all night. We often suffer from other people's choices, and there's not much we can do about that, either.

But when the problems in our lives are of our own creation, there is often something we can do about them, or at least to prevent them from continuing in the future. I seem to have an unusually stiff esophagus. There's not much I can do about having that condition, though there are some treatment options available, however, there is a great deal I can do about avoiding complications in the future. Namely, I can chew my food more carefully.

In cases of self-inflicted afflictions, we can most often avoid those problems by simply being more careful, by thinking things through before acting, and by trying to follow inspiration. Life is full of problems that we can't avoid. The least we could do for our own sakes is try to avoid creating more problems for ourselves. I know that God doesn't want us to suffer any more than we need to, and neither do we. We can reduce the afflictions we have to face in life by trying very hard to not make more afflictions for ourselves.