Pain is a pesky part of
being human... probably one of the most inevitable, scary, heart breaking and life changing aspects of having a body. I've learned it feels like a stab wound to the heart,
or hand sanitizer to a paper cut whatever the hurt be, we all wish it was something we could do without. Pain is a
sudden hurt that can't be escaped, and while it's not totally necessary, pain (in mortality) is inevitable. It's a choice we take as humans... pain. Not necessarily because we like it, but that
because of pain, you can feel the beauty, tenderness, and freedom of
healing. It's not to say that you CAN'T have tenderness, beauty and freedom without pain, one simply might have a deeper understanding when recovering from a broken heart... or at least, they now offer a different perspective of such a take on life. Pain feels like a fast stab wound to the heart. But then again,
healing feels like the wind against your face when you are spreading
your wings and flying through the air! We may not have wings growing out
of our backs, but healing is the closest thing that will give us that
wind against our faces. Unless it's literal wind in our face...... but the point is - pain is perspective.
I often visit Silver Lake Flats, and from 7,500 the view of the canyon is much different than the view I had at the bottom... going even farther up to Silver Lake, all the mountains look the same, and I don't know where I am... I'm fairly lost in a sense. Even writing that sounds foolish, because when I'm down here in the Valley, I know exactly where I am, I know where North, South, East and West are - and I undoubtedly cannot mistake the beautiful Mt. Timpanogos... but from a new perspective, from unfamiliar territory, all I know is where I am, and where I'm going and the perspective I once had means very little. For the time it served it purpose, for the time it was beautiful. If you've ever gone with me, or have ever been there before, you know that it is equally as beautiful, equally as challenging to get to, equally as a breath-taking all in a different way. Why? Because your road is a little different, and your perspective has changed. It's not necessarily bad, and it could not necessarily be good either... it's just different.
I've thought about this analogy many, many times since it was given to me by a dear friend. I'm so lucky I can relate to it, but it I'm dumbfounded every time I try and get around it... trying to understand why I hate new perspectives, why I aught to feel a different way, why I want to go back to old perspectives... and I've come to this conclusion. We are creatures of comfort. We find jobs that we're comfortable in, we fall in love and get comfortable with comfortable people, we join causes that we feel welcome and comfortable in, and all of these are amazing things! AND WHO WOULDN'T!? Who wouldn't want to be comfortable their whole life? Who wouldn't want safety, and security, ease of passage and faith in certainty. I would... but I also would want to know what's out there. I would want to know that wherever I settle down, wherever I get comfortable, that's it's right for me, where I can do the most good getting comfortable, and helping other understand what THEIR comfortable is. So that requires a bit of uncomfortable. It requires some exploration, which we are all guilty of from time to time. It requires guts and strength to be kind to those that are a little bit behind in the journey or who are just slightly ahead telling you what journey you should take. But there is this thing with comfortable, it's not the same for anyone.
I was baffled at this truth. I thought that because I liked to explore and because I had a lot of emotions and because I liked to speak about things of passion and wonderful ideas and worlds and discuss the imagination, that EVERYONE else I communicated with did also. I thought that wherever I was comfortable, everyone else would be comfortable there also... but I was wrong. I was terribly wrong. As a matter of fact, the very antithesis of that thought was a little more accurate than I would have ever hoped, and my very comfy, cozy, comfortable ideas, and lifestyle, and dreams made some that I associated with extremely uncomfortable. And here's where I got confused... people thought that because their perspective was different than mine, that this automatically constituted some right and wrong differential and that we couldn't be friends anymore. Now, I realize that I'm opening a can of worms with this, but there is no right or wrong differential simply because - hold this thought - it's the idea that EVERYONE is justified in their head. Simply agreeing with or disagreeing with something doesn't make an idea or feeling any less valid. I think we owe it to everyone to try to understand just a little bit more than we initially do... after all - it probably speaks more about our character when we are so quick to judge perspectives than it does of those that we look down upon.
"Promise me you'll always remember: You're braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.”
Remember, where you are, who you are, and who it is you wish to become is only a matter of perspective.
