The Path of Pain

Life is just a series of choices, you take the fork in the road or you don’t. If you stop at a fork and contemplate where it might take you, but you don’t take it because you are comfortable on the road you are on, that too is a choice. So many people today say, “life is what you make it” and that really is true but it isn’t that simple either. Many people in our current society don’t stop and contemplate the alternative “forks in the road” or take them because they don’t know that they exist or at least they pass them by because they can’t see that there are alternative paths.

 
One of the biggest reasons we don’t see the alternative paths in life is because we are in pain. Either physically, or mentally/spiritually. Physical and metal pain makes you turn away from the world, relationships, and opportunities and keeps you focused on yourself and your own pain. When you are in physical pain it is obvious that you must resolve the health issue in order to operate normally in the world. What is not so obvious for many people is that they are in mental pain (which looks like stress, anxiety, internal conflict, self hatred, depression, frustration and so on) and until they address the root cause of that pain they won’t be able to see and take the opportunities available to them. That is, pain, especially mental pain such as anxiety and internal unresolved conflicts (“I want to do this, but I’m going to continue doing that”) inhibits the ability to choose.

 
If you were clear as to why you are indecisive in any area of your life then you would be in action to resolving your indecision. It is only when we are not clear that we remain internally conflicted. The problem is not so much about clarity, as it is about our own motives for not being clear. If we were clear with ourselves then we would know what we have to do and sometimes knowing what we have to do is terrifying and that is why we choose not to be clear.

 
Just as alleviating our physical pain can help us better see what we need to change in regard to our health and lifestyle so too can alleviating mental pain help us see the choices available to us in life. Sometimes that simply means taking a short break from everything and reassessing our life. Other times it might mean completely leaving an old life, toxic relationship, life killing job, or intolerable life situation in order to be able to see and think clearly. Free of pain for a moment, we begin to see new opportunities and ways of expressing ourselves that we couldn’t before.

 
Our collective way of life in the modern world is the way of pain, “no pain no gain,” “keep a stiff upper lip,” “grit your teeth and get through it,” “just do it!” As a society we have stepped away from natural processes. If our natural tendency is to stop and reassess and ask why we should do something, then we shouldn’t simply ignore that inner dialog and just, do it anyway. “Just doing it anyway” even if you have reservations is the path to inner conflict – pain. Why are so many seemingly healthy people on psychotropic drugs to help them with anxiety? Do they need drugs, or do they simply need to listen to the inner voice that is questioning their actions?

 
Humans are social animals and it is difficult to move away from the prevalent social trends of one’s society. This is the reason so many people are in pain, and their pain keeps them from seeing that they could move away from the social roles that are causing their pain. It’s a vicious cycle that is usually only short circuited when there is a breakdown like a death, divorce, lost job and so on. That’s why you usually see people take completely different directions after such traumas, if they ever make such changes in their lives. It’s too bad that many people have to wait until such traumatic upheaval (if it ever comes in their lives) in order to change. It is far better to see that you are in pain and take an active role in changing before change is thrust upon you.

 
One thing is for certain, the law of the universe is change, that which stops changing dies. The macrocosm of the universe is ever changing, the microcosm of the Earth and human beings are ever changing and the microscopic world of energy and atomic forces is ever changing. Pain is a signal from nature that you need to be flexible and change, we can almost be thankful for this signal since it usually comes long before death ensues. But to live with pain too long is to ignore the universal signal that one needs to change. As Lao Tzu said:

 
“Men are born soft and supple; dead they are stiff and hard. Plants are born tender and pliant; dead, they are brittle and dry. Thus whoever is stiff and inflexible is a disciple of death. Whoever is soft and yielding is a disciple of life. The hard and stiff will be broken. The soft and supple will prevail.”