How to justify suffering?

Question from the Internet:

How can one come to terms with the amount of suffering in the world, such as crime, poverty, and famine, which happen each and every day? What advice can you give for that?

I do not think we need to come to terms with the suffering in the world. Actually, we have to increase our sensitivity towards others so we feel the pain, suffering, helplessness of others even more.

Of course, it would be torture if we could not help them, and since most people can’t even help their own situation, they sort of block out the suffering of others. After all, why would I want to suffer for others when I can’t solve even my own problems?

On the other hand, if we already have the remedy in our hands, as we already know what the root cause of the problems in the world is and we also know how to solve them, then we can already open ourselves up to the pain of others so we could offer them the remedy.

This might bring us a new kind of “suffering”, the suffering of a broken-hearted parent, a sibling who wants to help, has the remedy but the others still do not want to accept it as the remedy — as most medicine — is bitter.

The root cause of all our problems is our own, inherently self-serving, self-justifying, individualistic, and exploitative nature. And only when we all start to change, correct, upgrade ourselves can we start solving problems and rise to a qualitatively much higher, collective type of existence.

Then gradually the suffering becomes “love pangs” as we all care only about helping each other to change, to become able to interconnect above separation and differences, to mutually support, serve each other above and against the instinctive distrust and animosity.

Then we will also understand that the previous suffering was only the necessary contrast, the background against which we can fully appreciate and justify the happiness, fulfillment we feel in our new, mutually responsible, mutually complementing inyterconnections.