Woody Allen said this –
To love is to suffer.
To avoid suffering, one must not love.
But then, one suffers from not loving.Therefore, to love is to suffer;
not to love is to suffer;
to suffer is to suffer.To be happy is to love.
To be happy, then, is to suffer,
but suffering makes one unhappy.Therefore, to be happy,
one must love or love to suffer
or suffer from too much happiness.
This is one of those witty quotes that seems to make sense on first glance – but not really upon a deeper look. Here is why… To love need not mean to suffer. It is attachment to the loved that creates suffering. As such, to avoid suffering, one need not not love; one needs to reduce attachment to the loved, to love with less attachment. One suffers from not loving when there is attachment to the loved while trying to deny it. Not loving is suffering when there is aversion to loving. To truly love is the way to True Happiness. When one truly loves, without attachment, there is no suffering. If there is suffering, it would not be happiness.