Suffering = Pain x Resistance
Pain is mandatory; suffering is optional
If you’ve ever been in a meeting with me, then you’ve seen my Angst Mug. It is my one and only coffee mug. My Angst Mug is my daily reminder that angst will be part of my day, and I need to be okay with it.
In my Earning Trust post1, I talked about the steady increase in responsibility and scope as you move up in levels. Here I want to delve into the not so pleasant direct relationship: the level of uncertainty and ambiguity in your work also steadily increases. The more senior you become, the more time you’re spending on the more challenging problems that your company faces. What makes these problems more challenging is that they typically have less clear cut “right” answers. There are more judgment calls, with more downstream impact of each decision. I intentionally used “more” a bunch there … to capture how this builds up on a person, and can really start to weigh on them.
I always try to put this added weight in a more positive light. Whenever a colleague gets promoted, after I’m done congratulating them, I usually take that opportunity to introduce them to (or refresh their memory on) my angst progression. I was smiling during the congratulations, and I intentionally keep smiling for my angst sharing. That’s not because I’m a glutton for punishment. It’s because there truly is a positive side to angst that I want them to focus on. With a smile on my face, I say the following:
“With your increased scope will come more angst. Always remember that angst is a good thing, and should be embraced. Feeling angst means you’re acknowledging your own accountability and you are aware of the impact of your decisions. You should probably be worried if you don’t feel angst.
Here is the level of angst that should expect at each level:
Junior: you’ve heard of the term “angst”.
Staff: you encounter an angst-ful situation one a month.
Senior: you may have an angst-free day, but you won’t have an angst-free week.
Principal: you may have an angst-free meeting, but you won’t have an angst-free day.
Partner: you wake up in the morning to find a bottomless cup of angst waiting by your bedside … and you carry it with you throughout your day.
Executive: angst has invaded your dreams.
Angst is an indication that you’re taking the situation seriously enough. Celebrate that awareness2.”
My Angst Mug is my embracing of the angst. It has a rainbow on the mug, and a smile, so of course it’s a happy mug. And yet there is the angst of a naturally occurring rainbow being a frown. 🙂
Buddhism and Brooks
More recently, I was introduced to the Buddhist perspective on pain and suffering. I love this summary: “Pain is mandatory; suffering is optional.” Arthur C. Brooks describes it as an equation: Suffering = Pain x Resistance3. These are both excellent framings. Pain is a part of living. It’s inescapable. You don’t control the level of your pain. But you do control the level of your suffering. The more you resist the pain, the more you will suffer. Accept the pain and be better, in both the short and long term, because of it.
I highly recommend Arthur’s 4-minute exploration of suffering (link and timestamps included in the footnotes). And, confirming the parallel with my own angst perspective, Arthur has a line much reminiscent of my “You should probably be worried if you don’t feel angst” line. “You’re studying at Harvard University getting your MBAs. If you’re not sad and anxious, you need therapy.”
Arthur goes on to explain how his students demonstrate acceptance of the angst. “My students have a mantra they say at the beginning of the day: ‘I am truly grateful for the pleasant things that are going to happen this day … and I’m also truly grateful for the troubles I’m going to face because my learning and growth will come from these troubles. Bring them on.’”
My Angst Mug’s progression
What began as a mental image became a concrete totem when a colleague of mine made me my first Angst Mug as a gift. Ryan said that my angst progression resonated so much with him that he wanted to show his appreciation by getting me an actual Angst Mug.
Walking around the office with this mug, and going to pretty much every meeting carrying this mug, resulted in many more tellings of my angst progression. This mug became free advertising.
Being the only mug I used, it was inevitable that at some point I would mishandle it and break it. And when that happened, I took this picture, which I called “angst inception”: angst being captured both in the text on the mug and in the broken state of the mug.
The pain of the loss of this treasured gift was there. But the suffering was minimized by me turning this into an opportunity … to make a better angst mug. I sent this photo in a brainstorming email to some of my colleagues titled, “The end of angst?”. Under this photo, I wrote:
So now what? Options:
Get a replacement mug – this requires Ryan to still have a spare, as I’ve given all the ones away that Ryan gave to me.
Design a new mug – to really demonstrate embracing the angst, I think something like 🌈ANGST🎈could be a better message to send.
Come up with a new mug slogan – hmmmm, I always love an opportunity for change.
I had long wanted to show Angst in a more colorful setting to show a higher degree of embracing the angst, of welcoming it, of even going so far as to celebrate it. Hence my rainbow usage in option “b”
Jevan’s suggestion was first: “I think embracing the end of angst is the best approach. Print this picture on a new mug.”
That would take this “angst inception” one step further. This was a great start. Then came Chris’ AI-guided response:
Chris then took that inspiration into his Paint tool to free hand this rendering:
I couldn’t think of a better visualization of angst than turning a rainbow into a smile by turning it upside down. 🤯This was the final design for my Angst Mug 2.0, bringing together both ideas to make a real keeper!
I made more of these mugs, and every time someone was promoted to Principal on our team, I would give them my typical retelling of the angst progression, and then give them an angst mug to start them on their quest for Partner4.
Embrace the suck!
Footnotes
Finding The Meaning of Your Life, Arthur Brooks (Tim Ferris Show) @1:33:28 - 1:37:36
The “Don’t limit yourself” section of Self-Promotion
Your comment about "if you're not feeling angst..." reminded me of a Special Ops military guy sharing that if you don't have at least a little fear as you parachute out of a plane then you should probably stop doing it...