“Is numbing our pain always a good thing? The more we know pain, in all it’s varying flavours, the more we can appreciate the sensations and the feelings that we like. It’s the nature of contrast. If we never felt bitterness or anger then we wouldn’t deeply appreciate our happiness. And if we never knew fear, then we couldn’t admire our courage. So maybe to more fully enjoy the beauty in our lives, we must first acknowledge and embrace our pain”.
This clip from the TV show Perception reminds me of two moments in which I could appreciate pleasure thanks to pain.
The first one happened a few years ago: I was in United Kingdom for a course, and the speaker touched my emotions so deeply that all the grudge and rage I accumulated in my adolescence came out in a river of tears. I have never cried so much in my whole life.
That day I found out what emotional pain was.
But immediately after, lightness and happiness swept in and I could appreciate every little thing in my life. That day I experienced the law of contrast, above all when I missed my family that was far. Then, I felt extremely happy thinking that I could have caught a plane any time and run to them.
We are so lucky.
The other episode completely overturned my relationship with my father. I was losing him a few years ago because of a bad accident. That day we both woke up from the sleep of our unconsciousness, and for the first time we held each other until it hurt. It’s true. In order to appreciate the good things in our life, we have to experience the opposite things. Someone says it’s God’s plan. You know when you desperately try to get something and you get exactly the opposite.
A few months ago, for example, I tried really hard to find someone to rent a room in my office. The more I wanted it, the more I didn’t get a result. A few days after, one of the other renters left the office.
I could give a lot of examples of this dynamics.
You try to earn more? Here’s an unexpected expense.
You try to begin training? Here’s your knees whining.
Why does it happen? God’s plan want to make you experience absence, before presence. It wants to tak your breath away before inebriating you with oxygen, and while it happens you’re learning how to be humble.
I’ve learned that, when the things are getting worse, if what I’m trying to achieve is really what I want, if I don’t give up, happiness is waiting for me.