Embracing pain and becoming an adult

Mark Manson has a very unique way of getting his point across. I’ve read both his book — The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F**k and Everything Is F**ked — and it both he lays his message in a very simple “This is it! Take it or leave it” kind of way. He doesn’t sugar coat his message and at times his views might come off as too pessimistic. But given how seriously we take ourselves and how sensitive and fragile we’ve become, I feel his message is very apt for the times. One of my biggest takeaways is how he describes the inevitability of pain.

Pain is inevitable

Pain is a constant force and no matter how much you try, you will always run into it. It is a key ingredient needed for anything to make sense. Trying to avoid pain, is like trying to avoid water when you’re standing in the rain. You can run around but you are going to get wet. While this seems so simple and obvious to me now, it wasn’t the case. I grown up being taught that I need to work very hard. I’ve also heard the phrase “getting out of your comfort zone” way too often. I guess those was an indirect ways of saying that you need to face pain if you want something. But it’s still not clear, why more people don’t just say it as it is — Pain is inevitable so you need suck it up and bear it.

Suffering is a choice

While pain is inevitable, suffering is a choice. I picked this phrase up from Mason’s book and it was a revelation to me. What this mean is that you can essentially de-couple pain and suffering. Pain is a physical or psychological event that happens to you. Suffering is the interpretation or story that you tell yourself about the pain. The first is inevitable and out of your control but the story you tell yourself is 100% in your own hands. You cannot control what happens to but you can control how you react to it, and that makes all the difference. You’ve heard the expression of the glass being half empty or half full. Just like beauty is the eyes of the beholder, suffering as a result of pain is a choice. One of the best examples of this from my own experience is when I used to DJ at some parties. There were many nights where I played for almost 8 hours — starting at 8 in the evening and going on till 4 in the morning. The next day I would literally be in pain after standing for such a long time, but I never suffered from it! I loved DJing so much that I was very happy bearing the pain. Would I have liked the joy of playing without the pain — hell yes! But even if I had to bear some pain, I’d take it because it was worth it.

Pick your poison

What this comes down to is picking the things you want to endure pain for. If you can’t run away from pain, you might as well make it worth it and embrace it! I hate cold water which was one of the biggest reason why I wouldn’t swim regularly (stupid reason, I know). Anyway, after deciding that I had to embrace pain, I figured that suffering a little bit for the greater good of exercising and staying fit was worth it. By no means has this changed my aversion to cold water. I hate it and my mind is always trying to talk me out of it. And when the cold water hits my skin, that pain still continues. But now I know why I’m suffering that pain and that knowing has reduced my suffering, while the pain hasn’t changed at all.

In his book How Will You Measure Your Life, Clayton Christensen explain the difference between adolescents and adults, and it has nothing to do with age. Adolescents do things because they expect something in return. Adults do things because it’s the right thing to do. When we think about pain and have learnt to embrace it, we usually do it with the expectation of a future gain. This will help us in a lot ways but in some complicated cases, it falls short. We need to learn to embrace pain without any expectations and only by reaching there, do we evolve from adolescents to adults. This is important when you need to face pain for doing the right thing, sticking to your integrity, being honest, and so on. There’s no guarantee that you’ll get any kind of retunr and yet you do it. I’ll admit that this seems very hard to do and I’m no where close to where I’d like to be, but that is the ideal end state. I’ve seen parents do this the best — suffer a lot with no expectations from their kids — there’s something about that which create a sense in awe in me.

This essay is a part of my 30 day writing challenge. You can read more about why I’m doing it here