Poll: Agree or disagree: Is suffering optional?

I was driving into the country yesterday with my boyfriend, and we came upon a royal blue sports car that had emblazoned across its back bumper in yellow letters, “Life is painful. Suffering is optional.” As you can imagine, this began a long and interesting conversation between my boyfriend and me. (We tried to take pictures, but alas our SUV was no match for the sports car.)

We raised a lot of interesting issues – he and I – as a result of these two short sentences, so I wanted to get your thoughts on this as well.

First, tell me whether you agree with this statement, by using a scale of 1 to 5, where 1 means “Strongly disagree” and 5 means “Strongly agree.” Then tell me why you gave that rating.

Feel free to reply to others’ comments. As always, please be respectful and kind. (Note: I reserve the right to edit all comments.)

Thanks for participating.

I look forward to reading your replies.

Hugs,
Daphne