August 30, 2007

• pain

  When I look back upon my life I see that almost all of my
  decisions have been made in order to avoid or decrease feelings of
  pain, particularly emotional pain. The pain of embarrassment, the pain
  of shame, the pain of failure, the pain of rejection, the pain of self-doubt, the pain of of anger, and most of all
  the pain of sadness. With elegance and style and utilizing every clever
  trick in the book, I’ve avoided them all. More or less.  At the very
  least I’ve managed to mitigate them again and again. If you know
  yourself well enough that you can predict what events and circumstances
  are likely to make you suffer, you can always find a way to avoid them
  or lessen their impact if they cannot be avoided. It’s surprisingly
  easy. Surprisingly easy.

  Now in my ripe old age of 27 I start to
  look back and wonder, maybe pain wasn’t so bad a thing? Should I have
  worked so hard to avoid it? Was it worth it? I wonder if what I have
  really been doing is living a life under the tyranny of fear. Fear of
  pain. Every time I thought I was being clever enough to avoid something
  that might hurt,  and I told myself I was making the best and wisest
  decision because I couldn’t be hurt by making that decision, maybe the
  truth is I was just acting in accordance with my fear. I was doing
  exactly as the fear told me to without really thinking it through
  clearly. Stupid fear. It’s had me wrapped around its little finger all
  this time!

  And when I think back to those times when I did feel
  pain and I couldn’t avoid it and I couldn’t weaken it very much and I
  try to see the impact on my life. Interestingly I find these memories
  are the strongest memories I have. Some of them are the best I have.
  Some are powerful experiences all mixed up with so many emotions it is
  impossible to sort them all out.  Happiness, sadness, shame,
  self-doubt, fear, all rolled into one. And yet I learned from these
  experiences. Every one of them. And I carry them with me still and they
  are constantly helping me to understand the world a little better, to
  see things a little clearer.

  Pain sharpens. Fear clouds.

  Remembering the painful memories still hurts, but they are clear and
  crisp and I think I wouldn’t want to ever lose them. They are too
  important to me. They define who I am much more so than the acts of
  avoidance that characterize the rest of my life.

  And the worst
  part is, when I look back in contemplative moments like today and see
  all of the pain I’ve avoided because of my subservience to my fears, I
  can’t help but feel a deeper pain I never would have predicted back
  then when I was making all those decisions that seemed oh so right and
  clever all the days gone by. The pain of regret. What might have been
  otherwise had I not chosen to run away from the pain. How many deeper
  cherished memories might I have forged had I faced my fears instead?
  Might I not have chosen instead to let the pain exist, let it be as
  strong as it might, provided I take in all the other good things that
  could have come with it? Who would I be now if I had done that then? At
  the very least I know I’d be a person who feels less the pain that
  comes from dwelling upon what-might-have-been’s. Would that not alone have been worth it?

  Now’a'days
  I feel a little insulated, and with it comes a kind of numbness. It’s
  as if I’ve boxed off so much of the pain that I could have experienced,
  distanced all the things that might hurt, that I don’t experience much
  of anything that invokes in me any kind of emotion whatsoever anymore.
  It’s like I’ve built an effective cocoon around me, so I only interact
  with the world through selected safe channels that I already know won’t
  cause me strife. It makes every day living easy, but also empty,
  meaningless. It’s all becomes just an endless nothing.

  But I’m
  trying to be different. Little by little I teach myself to take risks,
  to do things that I know are likely to lead to painful gut wrenching
  experiences that I can’t help but fear so much. I do them anyway. And
  although I’ve just started, I already see myself changing a lot and I’m
  finding myself just a little bit happier with each successful choice.
  It’s slow going. It’s hard to beat back decades of habits and patterns
  so deeply ingrained in me. It’s harder still to beat the deepest fears
  that still haunt me. But I’m trying. And I think it is the best and
  most important thing I’ve ever tried to do.

  And so I feel as if
  that is advice that I should give to others as well. So dear reader
  take my word for it. Don’t ever get into a situation where you chose to
  make things less painful for you and as a consequence miss out on the
  good that could have come from it.  Be certain that the pain you choose
  to avoid is pain worth avoiding. And let the rest of the pain become a
  part of you, ensconced in the heart of your deepest most cherished
  memories, making them sharper, deeper, and more real to you. Most often
  I think you will find that the pain is not half so bad as living with
  uncertainty and fear and being haunted by regrets.

  • 9:48 pm
  • 1 Comment