A friend says: ‘The more you suffer, the more the reward in the Hereafter’. That is sadistic.
Answer
One should not invite trouble unnecessarily. However, if it comes from the Almighty as a trial, one should face it with patience. It is not quite as much the intensity of suffering itself as the quality of response one shows on the face of it that would decide one’s reward in the Hereafter. For instance, a person ‘A’ goes through suffering which is not quite as serious as that of another person B. If A’s response to his trial has been qualitatively superior in that he has been more patient and thankful to God despite his suffering than B, then he is very likely to get a higher reward despite B’s greater suffering. Moreover, one should not forget that reward is also in store for those who don’t go through suffering but are blessed with the Almighty’s mercies, to which they respond positively by being thankful and by sharing them with others.
The fact of the matter is that we are all going through a trial in this world. We are expected in the trial to respond to the circumstances we go through, by being patient and thankful. Some people confront occasions of patience more than those calling upon them to be grateful. The converse is true for others. Who goes through what form of trial is the Almighty’s prerogative. At the end of the day, it is the attitude of the individual towards God Almighty, and the circumstances he was given to go through, that would decide what his ultimate reward/punishment would be.