You don't know what the person is going through, and neither does the person. Humans can get stuck in the loop of suffering, without knowing why. Maybe they have suffered for so long, that they don't know anything else. Life is as complicated as the universe we live in. We don't always know why, but sometimes we do. We can then use our knowledge to climb out of hell :)

People choose to suffer in all sorts of ways, it's sometimes known as asceticism. What appears to differentiate the individuals in the OP's example is the element of choice. A true ascetic renounces pleasures that they could otherwise have in order to gain a, supposedly, greater good.

However, could it be that impulse to suffer is a psychological trait and there are simply some individuals who are drawn to self-denial? If this is the case, then there is no reason why the distribution of these individuals is limited to socioeconomic groups. In the same way that the middle classes have vegans, the disadvantaged have those who wallow in their condition since they appear to have chosen not to extricate themselves from their suffering despite having the opportunity to do so.

So why do some people choose to stay unhappy and unsuccessful? I dont understand why a clearly suffering person would choose to remain that way. I myself was helped out of an otherwise hopeless situation and took that chance to better myself. I know others who choose to remain despite being given more chance and freedom than myself or most people. How do you save a person like that?

I find that Trait Theory provides a pretty good account of the phenomena of why individuals don't behave in entirely predictable and logical ways. Whether or not it's true doesn't alter the fact that there is no reason to suppose (unless you're an economist) that anyone should behave in the same way as you in the same circumstances even if your response appears to you to be the most rational.

there are some people who insist on being helpless and seem to want to suffer. How does one help a disadvantaged person Who enjoys suffering — SherlockH

If someone appears to prefer being helpless and prefers suffering, it is likely that the appearances are misleading. Quite possibly there are some advantages for the individual that their helpless suffering stance obtains. A person might prefer to be judged disabled and receive an insufficient income benefit than work for a living and still not have a lot more than an insufficient income.

Sometimes people are just too stupid to understand and resolve their own problems. Too stupid or too addled by drugs and alcohol to figure it out. Or, sometimes too sick to do anything about it.

Could you be more specific about the type of people who insist on being helpless and seem to enjoy suffering? Yes, there are parasites who depend on ruses such as helplessness to get by. It isn't clear what exactly you are referencing.

For example a person says they cant get a job becuase of depression. While they say it makes them sad they dont have money to do stuff becuase they dont have a job and have to beg everyone for hand outs. That or "well clearly no one will hire my skin color, so looking for work is pointless. Ill go be a homeless begger". Compared to the worker who trys too hard at work becuase they feel inadequate and is worker of year. Who might later have a mental break down and quits thier job and was suffering from axiety and depression the entire time as well. That or the person who says despite everything will be the first black or female president.

depression — SherlockH

I think 'depression' is an overworked concept. Does it exist? Absolutely. Is the claimed depression real? Sometimes it is something else: anger, resentment, alcohol and drug abuse, poverty, bad mental habits, unpleasant transient circumstances in life, etc. These problems are also real, they are just not depression and taking anti-depressants isn't going to help. Angry, resentful, bitter people need to deal with those feelings and the underlying causation (maybe delusions). Same for the rest of it.

As for the race card... It's like depression. It's real some of the time, and some of the time it could be something else. One should deal with the something else that is within one's capacity to deal with. Sometimes blacks display distinct styles of clothing, speech, and general demeanor that are simply not acceptable in a business environment. Racism is real, but so is acting like you don't and won't belong in the kind of environment in which you want to work.

I've talked to quite a few people who have opted to beg. Some of these guys seem to have their lives somewhat together. Not too together, though, because standing by a freeway entrance all day has to be a fairly hard way to make a living. Similarly, begging on the street in Minneapolis in January is not taking the easy way. I can see how it happens: They are disabled, and/or social idiots, anti-social, or... whatever; chronically drunk, on drugs, disorderly, and so forth and they get kicked out of the programs and housing they are in.

Once you get kicked out, there are often no options. So... you beg. Begging is a tough disciplinarian: you have to stay at it, be nice to people who want to talk to you (and might give you four or five dollars rather than 35¢, look penitent and harmless, and so on. If you don't stay out there, heat, cold, rain, sleet or snow -- you won't get enough for a meal and a bed for the night.

The advantage to begging is that you don't have a boss, you don't have to deal with co-workers, and you can take a passive attitude: it isn't MY fault that I AM where I AM. I AM an unfortunate victim of ... whatever. And sometimes they are.

How does one help a disadvantaged person Who enjoys suffering about it but then crys and refuses to fix it? Ive have dealt with a lot of people who respond when given support but some are insist on not changing the situation? — SherlockH

It would be useful to know who those people are, why they need help, and what exactly you're doing with these people and why. I'm not asking. But I wonder if you really know and make that part of the equation. There's an implication in what you wrote that when you feel you've helped someone, they owe you. I can assure you they don't. You want to "make it better" in some way, and you can't - and that's a very tough lesson to learn.

In fact there are a lot of very tough lessons to learn when "trying to help." Among them is recognizing that in many cases your understanding of the problem is, if not completely wrong, then hopelessly inadequate, skewed, or misguided. Another is that as an individual, you're "defeated" almost at the start. People who need help often need what I call a corporate level of assistance/care/help. Such help can also be called institutional or team-based. By this I only mean that in almost every way an individual simply does not have the resources to really help - and can sometimes cause no small amount of harm and damage!

Helping is a complex, difficult, and all too often unrewarding endeavor, not really for amateurs going it alone or touchy-feely types or people who really don't know what they're doing - and especially not for people working out issues of their own on a vulnerable population. For any person wanting to offer help to anyone, the only real reasonable choice is to approach a professional organization for advice and guidance on how best to give that help.

All good points.

As Jesus said, "You'll always have poor people." Even successful societies have beggars. In the normal distribution, most people will be at least somewhat successful in life, but there is that narrowing tail of bell-shaped curve on the left side that locates the people who don't and can't succeed. The less society accepts the fact that there will always be people on the bottom that need help, the more beggars there will be.

When a truly kind man does something, he leaves nothing undone.
When a just man does something, he leaves a great deal to be done.
When a disciplinarian does something and no one responds,
He rolls up his sleeves in an attempt to enforce order. — Lao Tzu

Generally speaking, people in that sort of scenario, if there are things they could be doing to pull themselves out of suffering, but they aren't doing them, it's because they don't have anything "outside themselves" to believe in (a God, an ideal or principle, another person, e.g. a child or a beloved, etc., etc.). It's a cliche, but it's true: generally, human psychology usually needs to be focused on goals that transcend the ordinary self.

There are exceptions - some people function quite happily pursuing self-generated goals related solely to self-betterment - but on the whole most people seem to live more happily when they're dedicated to some goal external to them - raising a family, doing charitable work, working for the betterment of one's people or one's nation, working ad majorem Dei gloriam, etc.

If someone won't help themselves, then maybe getting them to help someone else will help them help themselves too.

People do not ow me anything. I help becuase its morally wrong not to. I often get screwed over even when I do help these people. In a way I was raised to be a matyr but there are some people who choose to wallow or make everyone else suffer for thier sake. I know these people as my freinds, family, coworkers, strangers who asked for help. People are not hard to understand if you observe and get to know them. However people do what they wish to do. I just dont understand if given an escape why one would still sit in hell. I honestly find it kind of pathetic but im still likely to care about others suffering. Humans are very sad to watch. Even when the suffering is of thier own doing.

So you are saying a life without meaning can not be saved?

So you are saying a life without meaning can not be saved? — SherlockH

Generally speaking, yes, apart from the outliers I mentioned. It does seem that most human beings are built to see their life in the perspective of some transcendental over-arching contextual view or other, whether that be traditionally religious, or patriotic, or the quasi-religious perspective of the modern Left. We just seem to hum along better with a sense of transcendence like that.

I'm a bit confused on the assumption that people make the choices they do out of some need to suffer. I get that working with those in need can often lead to developing a negative sense of the people one is helping. that is a perfectly natural course of events which involve emotions and the subconscious but some of it can be attributed to a human phenomena I like to call the agree vs understand hurdle. So where do you think this notion comes from?

Many good observations above. Also, self sabotage stems from self loathing, the belief that one deserves to be punished for perceived shortfalls and then sobconsciously goes about administering the punishment.

To preserve privacy of individuals, I'll quote a recent conversation anonymously, which I think may encapsulate the dynamic of the OP:

Me: You should never have regrets. If you have not performed to your potential then you have just overrated your potential - probably failing to take into account factors that limited your potentials.

Him: That's wrong. There are definitely times when I should have done better but I took the easy way out.

Me: That just means there were factors in your personality that prevented you from putting in your best effort.

Him: No no no ...

He is determined to suffer. He believes he deserves to suffer - cause and effect. Karma. It would be great to find a way to crack the code but decades of ingrained negative thinking - of anything - creates a deeply ingrained habit of thinking.

We are all broken in some ways, but some more so than others.

He is determined to suffer. He believes he deserves to suffer - cause and effect. Karma. It would be great to find a way to crack the code but decades of ingrained negative thinking - of anything - creates a deeply ingrained habit of thinking. — Greta

This assume your position in the conversation is all around correct and he is the wrong. Yet where the topic of whether or not he is wrong is considered the context provided seems to be a broad view without considering the individual variables as is often the case when your goal is merely to cheer someone up. Unfortunately many people who are the target of this cheering up are actually thinking in the micro of the issues where are you the cheer-er up-er :/ are thinking in broad strokes.

Yes, I do think he believed I was just giving him cheery talk rather than logic, and thus dismissed it.

Being bright and articulate with a couple of minor savant gifts does not mean that one is emotionally stable enough to utilise the positive qualities. It is easy to gloss over one's shortcomings (which are often more clearly noticed by others), and then overrate our capacities and subsequently unfairly blame ourselves for not achieving.

I wonder if it's sometimes easier to blame our failings on lack of effort than to admit that one is actually more middling and less exceptional than one imagined?


PS. Sorry for not quoting but I don't know the protocols for quoting with this forum's software, which seems different to the kind of BB code I'm familiar with.

I don't know the protocols for quoting — Greta

Select the text, and click the quote button that appears. Shimples.

Select the text, and click the quote button that appears. Shimples — unenlightened

Thanks :) I didn't expect a context sensitive button.