The Function of Pain

"I want to prevent my family from feeling pain", he said. 

I had a long conversation with a friend of mine about life and career. A core motivation of his thinking and his behavior turned out to be not to cause any pain for his family. The problem is: It doesn't seem to work for him. And I'm not surprised. As noble as it seems, with an attitude like this you can only fail and cause your life to be miserable. 

There's a reason why there's pain. Pain per se is not a bad thing. It's life telling you that you haven't learnt a certain lesson yet. When I'm in agony after I got beaten the shit out of me, I might want to stop yelling the N-word when I'm in the middle of Capetown.

Pain doesn't equate suffering. It can be quite the opposite. Why else would there be masochists? Why else would there be depressive people cutting their own skin? The infliction of pain can be a major relief. It can also be a massive motivator. Amongst the most impressive high performers there are people who have learnt the ability to use pain as motivation. In other words: pain is a necessary step towards reaching your desired goal. Not without justification there's the saying among bodybuilders: "No pain, no gain". 

If there's one thing I learnt during my practice of Vipassana Meditation it's this: Physical pain is just energy flowing. You can choose to identify with it or you can choose to take a step back and observe it. You don't need to decode it as suffering. 

To get back to the initial example of my friend who aims to avoid pain for his family: it's a recipe for disaster. It's because how your family perceives pain and suffering is entirely up to them. You cannot control it. You can try to influence, fair enough. But you cannot control it. As soon as you put the control over your own well-being away, you also give your power away. If you want to contribute to other people's well-being in the best and biggest way possible, take care of your own well-being first. Only if you have the capacity to give, you can actually give. And it's your own responsibility to create the capacity. 

Pain is also an essential indicator for growth. When I was in my teenage years my body grew rapidly. My bones would hurt often. My mom called this pain "growth pain". It's not easy. Nobody said it was easy. And dealing with pain is not meant to be easy. Yes, I expect all of the broken-hearted people to give my an angry F*** YOU for this, but I'm not here to tell you what you want to hear, I'm here to tell you what you need to hear to empower yourself: 

The bigger the pain the bigger the lesson to learn. 

And as a bonus: The bigger the pain the more likely it is that you will REMEMBER the lesson.