Is Rationalizing Your Suffering a Good Idea?

Say when you were a kid you broke your father’s phone. When he found out, he immediately gave you a hard slap in the face. You ran off and cried, not so much because of the pain, which had become only a reminder of what just happened, but because you couldn’t accept what your own father had just done to you.

After a while, you calmed down. As you thought over what happened, you still couldn’t accept it. Besides, it wasn't the first time something like that had happened. Yet, you didn’t want to think badly of your own father, because if you did, it would be difficult to live with him. So, you ended up rationalizing what happened. You convinced yourself: What he did was right. I deserve it. Life is like that. When you make someone unhappy, they have the right to punish you.

This is a common way we deal with suffering. We try to rationalize it, so that we can suppress our unhappy feelings. But is this really a good idea?

In dealing with our sufferings this way, we create a distorted view of reality. We then live according to this view, mostly without our awareness of it. This is certain to create problems for ourselves and others. Think of the above example. What kind of relationship will you have with others as you live with the view “When you make someone angry, they have the right to punish you”?

Imagine this scenario playing out in your life as an adult. Let’s say your partner constantly criticizes and punishes you for your wrongs—deliberate or not. You might rationalize their behaviour, convincing yourself it’s just “tough love”, or you might tell yourself that you’re just “overly sensitive” for feeling hurt.

Then let’s say you have children. Just like everyone else, they aren’t perfect. They may sometimes be late, make mistakes, etc. But with that punitive mindset in you, you go overboard in your corrective measures. You scold them severely or even punish them for things that don't deserve punishment.

These are possible effects of rationalizing to suppress our unhappy feelings. It sets up a maladaptive mindset in us that is bound to affect how we live our lives.

A different way of rationalizing

If we don’t rationalize our suffering as mentioned above, what do we do then? Let’s return to the above example. Instead of forcing yourself to believe that what your father did was right, you can recognize that it was wrong. And if you broke his phone deliberately, you can also recognize that what you did was wrong. Now, even if what you did was wrong, it doesn’t make the slapping right. Wrong is still wrong.

Also, even if the action is wrong, that doesn’t mean the person who did it is bad. Ultimately, there are no good or bad people, just good or bad actions. We can recognize that an action is bad without thinking that the person is bad. After all, we all do things that we later recognize were wrong and even come to regret.

Now, this kind of rationalizing is different. It’s a kind that brings about clarity and not creating wrong ways of thinking that will cause problems. This kind of rationalizing is “thinking rationally”, while the earlier way is actually just “making excuses” to suppress our unhappy feelings.

Of course, when we were kids, we couldn't possibly think like this. But we’re not kids anymore. As adults, we can now think like this.

Conclusion

There is a place for rationalizing, but it should be a tool for understanding, not a shield against unhappy feelings. Indeed, it is sometimes uncomfortable to face the truth. Yet, doing so is necessary to go beyond suffering.