Suffering (In Short)

Given the circumstance of time, that 1) You cannot know what
will happen next, i.e., you can always be wrong about the
future, even if you're 'psychic' (It's the nature of the
concept of time); and 2) The future decides the past, and
present. What something becomes decides what it is, and was.
(If something becomes an oak tree, it was an acorn; if it
becomes Mozart, it was a human embryo; etc.) . . . 

What you, or anyone, becomes, decides what you were, and are.
Decides what is in your best interests. You do not, and
cannot, have a clue as to what is 'vital and necessary,' for
yourself or anyone else. Not a clue. Because any such claim
is a claim against all future time. Metaphorically, it is a
claim against the 'will of God.' Philosophically, it is an
unjustifiable, logically unsupportable claim against the
future. You can make such claims all you like, but if you do,
you will suffer, as human beings suffer. Nothing supports or
forces such claims, except vanity, and a failure to
understand the nature and significance of time. As Socrates
said to his friends, at the beginning of the Western
philosophical tradition, after being condemned to death by
the Athenian court: 'And so we go our separate ways, you to
live, and I to die. And which is better, only God knows.'
But we think we know (desperately, erroneously), every moment
of our suffocating lives, and suffer. It's really very
simple--so simple that only Socrates, apparently, understood.
And not perfectly. Until now.