Pain: The Great Teacher
No one that has ever lived has experienced a life without pain. To seek a painless life, is akin to asking the sun to rise from the west; such a thing is completely pointless. In this case, it is not only not possible, but also completely counterproductive. Pain, after all, is the great teacher, and without it, growth would slow and stagnate, if not become impossible.
When we need to learn something, and understand this intellectually, it is all too easy to simply… not learn. Those who are able to intellectually see the need for change, and do it just on principal, are exceptional beings indeed. For the rest of us, it usually takes some kind of discomfort, pain, or incentive, in order for changes to be made. The greater the discomfort or pain, the greater the lesson that needs to be learned, and the faster we tend to learn.
If we view ourselves as the victims to pain, we deny the lessons that the pain is trying to teach us. In truth, while we can be victims to circumstances, the actions of others, or et cetera, we never have to stay victims going forward. Some create an identity out of victimhood, and defend their victimization as if it was their own life at stake. I used to do this myself. Instead of making victimhood an identity, however, we can also choose to see everything that happens in our life as a teacher, as serving us in some form or another. It does not excuse the bad actions of others, or take away the pain. Nothing said here is meant to encourage or endorse bad things. Instead, this perspective allows one to transmute a bad circumstance that has happened into a powerful driving force for change, growth, and personal development.
I will now segway from generalities, and speak to my personal experience:
In the past year, I have experienced pain and loss on a scale I had never before experienced in my adult life. This affected my physical heath, mental health, finances, relationships, activities, even my very sense of identity. Through this huge breakdown, almost everything I used to hold on to for a sense of self was stripped away. My old career path (Senior Reactor Operator Trainee) is no longer an option for me, forcing me to seek alternatives. My marriage is dead and gone. I see my son only every other weekend. I rarely see my friends. I had an anxiety induced heart attack last year. I have experienced financial difficulties due to the divorce and work situation. I lost interest in many of my old hobbies. Simple pleasures I used to enjoy lost their luster.
Why do I tell you, dear reader, all of these things? I tell you this so that what I say next actually has meaning.
I am not a victim.
I spent many years of my life hiding away from myself and my growth. When life gave me chances to learn early, I chose to defer them till later. High school became college. College became early career years. Ultimately, these lessons I needed to learn could be deferred no longer, and complete burnout set it. I chose this, I am not some victim who had this forced on him. I made choices, and those choices had consequences. Had I chosen to continue to see all of this as a victim, this whole thing would have been the death of me.
Knowing that I chose this is empowering. Knowing that I needed to learn is empowering. Knowing that I can make different choices now, having learned from all of these things, is also empowering. The quality of the choices we make, right now, determines the quality of our future. This is why I go on, even now, at rock bottom but looking up. I know that I am making higher quality choices right now. I know that I am not the person I used to be, and thus the past is no longer doomed to repeat itself.
No matter how much was lost, I am still me. I still have a lot to offer to this world. I have even more now than I did before, thanks to all of the pain, all of the learning, that I endured. The scars left upon me by my life define me, not as a victim, but as one who has experienced hardships and survived. Everything I have experienced allows me to deliver a unique perspective to the world. One that has a chance to help others. This is why I share my thoughts, travels, and experiences. It is my true hope that my life, and the things that I have learned and experienced, can serve to inspire others to get out of their comfort zone. To learn, to grow, and to experience all that life has to offer. To find within, what cannot be found externally.
So, dear reader, I leave you with this question: Can you see how everything that has ever happened in your life can serve you? Can you transmute the worst hardest parts of life into your greatest strengths? Can you accept pain as a teacher, rather than be a victim to it?
Only You can decide what meaning you draw from your experiences, and how that impacts the rest of your life.
