Vital Habit #3
Learn From Pain
Pain is the Best Teacher
The one thing that seems to unify all humanity is that we all experience pain.
This is not a bad thing, as pain is the best teacher. A child tries to throw
his cat around like a rag doll and is scratched.
He
learns to be more careful with animals. A toddler puts some food in her mouth
after her mother has warned her that is “hot”. She quickly learns not to do
this again. While we need to protect children from serious pain that could scar
them for life, if we protect them too much we will also prevent them from
growing. Children who have been overprotected by their parents often end up as
dangerously vulnerable and immature adolescents.
The illusion that pain is always a “bad” thing is extremely dangerous. Pain
serves a purpose. It’s a warning. It’s a lesson. Let’s review the example
used in the 3rd Great Law above:
When we put our hand on a hot
stove, it warns us to pull our hand away to prevent it from burning off.
Imagine, however, what would happen if instead of taking your hand off the stove
you gave yourself a shot of morphine to deaden the pain. It would make you feel
better, of course, but the downside would be you would lose your hand.
Unfortunately,
the silly illustration above occurs far too often in real life. People feel
pain, but instead of learning the lessons the pain has to offer or heeding its
warnings, they medicate themselves to deaden the pain. Some use alcohol, some
use other drugs, some use intense relationships with other people, loud music,
running away, anger, hiding or a combination of all of the above…there is a long
list of different techniques. All of them deaden the pain temporarily only to
ensure that it will return again… usually in a more dramatic manner later.
Unfortunately life is like a relentless schoolteacher; the lessons, which we don’t learn, we are forced to repeat over and over until we finally do learn them.
