HARUKI Murakami said, “Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.”
One of my favorite writers and an avid runner, Murakami was referring to the pain felt when running long distance, which is unavoidable because of biological reasons. He argued, however, that bearing the pain, to “suffer” or otherwise, is up to the runner.
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Dr Khayriyyah Mohd Hanafiah
Dr Khayriyyah Mohd Hanafiah is an honorary fellow at Macfarlane Burnet Institute (Melbourne, Australia) and an alum of the Young Scientists Network-Academy of Sciences Malaysia. She is active in science communication and infectious disease biomedical research. She was the first female Asian champion of FameLab, the world’s longest running science communication competition, in 2018. The writer’s views are her own.
