The 30% Rule
we are all going thru it
Today I was leaving a university campus and overheard a girl explain in frustration: "People always assume being an international student is easy because we have money. They have no idea how hard it is to be away from family."
The following evening I heard the inverse complaint: "International students have no idea what it's like to not know where your next quarter's tuition will come from. They just show up to class in Chanel pajamas."
Everyone has "no idea."
We feel separated by how our human experiences are non-transferable. No one but ourselves experiences them, so everyone has "no idea."
This is best illustrated when you see two siblings hitting each other and arguing about who hit the other "harder" (speaking from experience). The hits get gradually harder as neither sibling comes to understand that severity and pain cannot be understood beyond the self.
But the childish punch war continues into our adult lives where we naively pursue empathy, praise, and pity by comparing our pain and suffering against each others. They take some form of no idea complaints: "look at how hard my circumstances are, this person has no idea."
The 30% Rule
I believe there is a remedy to this complaint: to understand that our lifetime suffering has some degree of equivalence to those around us.
Hmmm... this sounds like a privileged statement, to say that the most wealthy, comfortable people can suffer comparably to those of underprivileged circumstances.
Okay, valid. But this 30% of suffering considers the physical and mental capacity.
Kim Kardashian and a man named Mike
Kim Kardashian. Media portrays her rise to fame and wealth as one with ease — a 0-to-100 suffering-pleasure ratio. But take a night to watch early Keep (which I highly recommend btw) and observe a mom pressure her young daughter to be on a porn magazine, and then try to make that case again. The media speculation and invasion of privacy are no short of mental suffering.
A homeless man living on my street: Mike. Some may see Mike eating cheese Ruffles in the rain and conclude his life is purely suffering as he sits quietly observing people walk by — a 100-to-0 suffering-pleasure ratio. But when I speak to Mike, I hear his stories and hear how peaceful he is; how fun and carefree his younger years were. While he sits in physical discomfort now, Mike describes life in such simplicity that I do not doubt his mental comfort.
When you consider suffering as what is experienced by the mind, not just as a physical state, suffering becomes universal — completely independent of economic status, geographical region, etc.
This insight is absolutely essential for compassion. We are all suffering in our own bodies, regardless of how much we express it or those around us do. Understanding that we share a 30% of lifetime suffering brings us closer toward understanding each other and seeing unique human experiences with kindness and compassion. It further alleviates a constant necessity to express our frustration with our own suffering relative to someone else's.
Applying the 30%
Let me paint a familiar, frustrating experience of being "out-done" in something as simple as a puzzle.
Consider an identical set of puzzles presented to you and a friend. Your friend completes the first puzzle with ease, and you sit in confusion trying to solve it, further panicking at observing your friend's ease.
While it feels instinctive to contemplate their lack of suffering (why does everything come so easily to them, why are they so gifted?!), this time you successfully recount the 30% rule:
(2) Should their experience be truly of ease, their 30% of challenges will exist in some way that mine won't — so it is of greater value to understand my 30% of challenges and then find focus on my 70% of ease.
I believe we can find greater clarity, focus, and compassion once we settle on the 30% rule being the best insight into others' suffering that we can develop, and the best understanding of our own.
We are all carrying our 30%. Be kind.