Pain is Your Best Teacher

BY SOFO ARCHON

“Nature shows that with the growth of intelligence comes increased capacity for pain, and it is only with the highest degree of intelligence that suffering reaches its supreme point.” ~Arthur Schopenhauer

We are so afraid of pain that we’re doing the best we can in order to avoid having painful experiences in our lives. And yet the whole way we are living is leading us to exactly what we are trying to avoid.

Painful experiences have so much to teach us. Pain implies that something is wrong with our lives. Pain points out to the fact that we need to take action so as to change the way we are living–to stop doing some things and to start doing some other things. Therefore, pain isn’t bad, contrary to what most people believe. In fact, pain is our best teacher.

Only by paying attention to your pain, can you discover your bliss, because pain urges you to find out what are its causes and how to deal with them. Pain means problems, and to solve problems you need to increase your intelligence. This is why those who don’t have the courage to face their innermost fears and deal with life’s problems are usually not that smart–they don’t use their brain that much and so it atrophies.

If you study the history of humankind, you will find that the greatest minds to have ever walked on earth were those most sensitive to pain. Pain urged those individuals to ask questions and seek for answers. Pain pushed them to see life from a whole different perspective.

So don’t be afraid of pain. Accept pain and embrace it. This, however, does not mean that you should be a masochist. It does not mean that you should desire pain in your life. It just means that when you are in pain, you should not try to avoid facing it or find ways to distract yourself from it. Instead, allow pain to show you what it has to show you.

Most of us are continuously trying to avoid encountering pain, because we know that if we do otherwise we might experience tremendous emotional turmoil. So we choose to waste most of our time distracting ourselves. We are watching TV, buying products, consuming pills, partying… we keep on doing all sorts of things, no matter how stupid, just so we can avoid a moment of aloneness. But unless we learn to listen to our pain, we are never going to overcome it, and unless we overcome our pain, we are not going to live a life of wisdom and contentment.

“Don’t carry your mistakes around with you. Instead, place them under your feet and use them as stepping stones to rise above them.” ~Ryan Ferreras