Can One Be A Slave To Feelings?

[Dimmesdale]

Recently a friend of mine said that I was possibly a slave to feelings because I do not wish to work, necessarily, because it is an unbearable burden (mentally/psychologically).

What a pile of horse manure! First of all, one must take into account the highly subjective nature of personal suffering. No one can tell exactly what another person is going through except the sufferer. And only the sufferer can thus properly gauge his suffering. Counseling of course helps, but one must know himself by himself.

My friend told me it is necessary to persevere in life. And I agree! But, what this friend of mine could not realize was that there is a limit to perseverance beyond which it is no longer welcome or practicable. Perseverance is good up to a point, in other words, but once one becomes a slave to doing one's job, or feeling utterly decimated within, then it is no longer wise to continue to suffer with such an overwrought and wasted brain.

Love of well-being, or "good feelings" is natural to all human beings. One is no more a slave to them than a drowning man is a slave to oxygen. EVERYONE is absolutely dependent on SOME LEVEL/DEGREE of well-being. And, once again, that NEED can only be gauged by the sufferer himself. The individual is the ultimate authority. Not some person outside of him. That said, some individuals may not judge rightly their own degree of suffering and think that they cannot deal with some degree of suffering that they in fact CAN deal with. And in this sense one may not always have the best estimate of his suffering. But this is not the same in all cases. If one has seriously considered that he cannot suffer like this, then that judgment by the individual is inviolable. He has a right to retire and desist from work. He has that inalienable right.

So there.