Why is pain your friend?

FREEDOM

The true form of freedom is freedom through self-restraint. It is not the right to choose in this life everything that you want, it is the right to choose what you refuse. Don't expect happiness. Don't expect less suffering. Don't expect to get rid of your weaknesses. Hope for unlimited opportunities and endless pressure that are in every moment. Hope for the suffering that comes with freedom. For pain that accompanies happiness. For the power that breeds helplessness. Our goal is to move without hope, don't hope for better things, you have to be better. It is the first sacrifice, the first rejection. Undoubtedly, it is hard and painful, but not just because I have mentioned suffering.

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SUFFERING

Life - is an endless stream of suffering. And it doesn't mean that to grow up you have to get rid of this stream. Vice versa, you must dive and learn how to swim there.

In other words, living well doesn't mean avoiding suffering, it means suffering right.

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PAIN

Because the pain is the foundation, it gives us a lot of growth opportunities. But you don't have to either blunt it or turn away from it. Just accept and find the value and a sense.

Pain is the source of all values. To stop feeling it equals losing the sensitivity to all crucial things in the world. Pain generates moral wounds, which through time turn into our deepest beliefs.

If we set the goal to get rid of the pain, we are getting rid of our goal and of our ability to see the direction in our lives.

I distinctly know the feeling, when you think that you are not happy, you want to give up because you can't see the success in little things or just can't untie node in your head. And it's not that you are doing something wrong, it's not the problem in you.

I would like to tell you about "The Blue Dot effect". The experiment involved Researchers asking participants to identify “Blue” Dots from a series of a thousand Dots ranging in color from very blue to very purple. These Dots would flash on a computer screen one after the other. Initially, for Dots shown on the screen, the participants identified the color pretty accurately. Roughly half of the dots were blue, and half were purple.

However, progressively researchers made sure the frequency of Blue dots reduced dramatically. Strangely, the participants reacted by selecting as Blue Dots those that were shades of purple their classification of Blue expanded in proportion to the decrease in the Blue Dots on the screen. In essence, as the occurrence of blue dots decreased, the definition of blue expanded. Prevalence affected the judgment of the respondents.

In further experiments, the researchers found the same effect when participants had to identify aggressive faces from a group that ranged from ‘very threatening’ to ‘not very threatening,’ and again when separating unethical research proposals from ethical ones.

Even when the occurrence of “problems” (threatening faces/unethical proposals) went down, participants began to misread friendly and neutral faces as threatening and ethical proposals as fraudulent.

The Blue Dot effect suggests that our mind is conditioned to look for threats and issues, regardless of how safe or comfortable our environment is. The better things get, the more we nitpick on even the smallest of issues. The size of the problem does not determine our emotional reactions to our problems. Instead, our minds simply amplify our problems to fit the degree of stress we expect to experience. Success and material progress do not necessarily relax us or make us feel better about our future.

Here is the case, you are not the only person, who has this feeling, which I mentioned before. It is human nature. Think about it!

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SELF-DEVELOPMENT

Adult values strengthen from unexpected difficulties. The worse our relationship develops, the more useful is honesty. The scary world around you, the more important to pull yourself together and go on your way. The harder life gets, the necessarily learn humility.

If you have to persuade a person to love you - it is not real love. If you have to ask for respect, nobody will respect you. If you have to prove that you are reliable, real reliability won't exist.

Eventually, the only way to improve the world is to improve yourself. You need to be more virtuous, and, you need to learn how to make simple decisions to relate to yourself and others as a goal, not as a tool to reach a goal. Be honest. Do not lead yourself astray, and do not hurt yourself. Do not shift responsibility onto others, and do not give in to fear. Love openly and fearlessly.

There is no heaven or hell ahead. There is only choice, which you make at every moment.

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