I was in a taxi when the driver asked me for the exact address of the place we were traveling to. As I moved to the side and leaned forward, the joints of my right knee took a knock against a small knob that stuck out. The knob had hit a spot between bones and for a minute and a half I knew nothing but intense pain.
I screamed. I swore. I rubbed my knees with my palm as I just felt everything else blank out. A minute and a half later, the pain began to dull and a few minutes later, I was ready to behave normal.
Those few minutes made me think. During that minute of intense pain, I cared for nothing but my pain. It didn’t matter that the taxi driver was confused. Even if there was a serious crisis at hand, it wouldn’t have mattered. For that minute and a half, I was incapable of doing anything else. Slowly, as the pain lessened, I began thinking about other things. Five minutes down, I was ready to do work, be nice and continue attempts to make that small difference in the world.
I realized that pain changes everything. If we are in pain, we are incapable of doing anything other than to just focus on it. In this case, the pain was physical and such instances are rare. More often than not, the pain is mental. We feel low, bad, sad, etc.
On a macro level, this is why stability is key to making meaningful contributions to this world. This is why creative contributions to society only happen in places experiencing periods of stability. You are not likely to hear of inventions that change the world coming from war torn Afghanistan or Iraq. The severe pain caused by a lack of security results in an intense focus on one self and one’s society. War costs more than just weapons and lives..
On a personal level, it matters so much that we have support systems in place for us to constantly put our pain in perspective. Maybe things are not that bad after all and maybe we need to read a book, get some exercise, speak to a close friend or a mentor to tell us that. Else, we can end up just spending a large part of life being incredibly self involved..
A Learning a Day 