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Pain is a Tool


The Marines will tell you "pain is just weakness leaving the body." While this is a nice slogan, I don't completely agree. Yes, pain certainly can drive out weakness, but it must be managed and controlled. Otherwise, it may cripple resolve, poison ambitions and proliferate weakness. It's not what you experience but HOW you experience the pain that is critical.

Imagine twin brothers whose parents divorce during their childhood, or maybe they even lose their parents completely in a terrible accident. One brother may become bitter and angry, upset at the world because he wasn't dealt a fair hand. This negativity permeates every area of his life and erodes his soul.

The other brother has a completely different reaction. This brother learns to value life and relationships even more. The destruction he saw causes him to view the good things in his life as even more precious. He even learns to use the pain he feels to help others through their hardships. Both brothers lived through the same event, but had totally different experiences. Pain strengthened one and crushed the other.

Pain is amoral - neither good nor bad. It is simply a tool, like a scalpel. Used properly, the scalpel of pain can surgically remove the feeble, flawed and even cancerous areas of our mindset and being. However, it can also cause great damage if it's wielded incorrectly, if it isn't managed. It can sever the nerves of our will and cause us to hemorrhage courage.

Although our society, as a whole, seeks to evade pain whenever possible, it is unavoidable. Discomfort and hardship will find each one of us eventually, whether we are ready or not. Life rarely sends a warning shot. We must learn to embrace difficulty and meet pain, whenever possible, on our terms, rather than letting it find us. Only then are we able to harness it when life blindsides us. Pain will come sooner or later, don't waste it.

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