Perceptions of Pain

By Yash Desai

Pain. The most powerful thing in the world. Ruthlessly used to coerce thoughts, manipulate emotions  and make you lose control of the very freedom over the fibers of your being. But it can also be a  pathway to happiness, an anvil to forge bonds, and a platform to share deep moments. 

Pain can be physical or mental. It could be a bruise so mottled with gloomy purple and grotesque green  colors that make you gag the more you look at it. It could be words so sharp from a parent or peer that  makes you feel so small you wished you could be that insignificant fly hanging on the wall. It could be a  mix of where the pain you feel if you fell off a bicycle is exemplified tenfold when your pain is the cause  of your mothers’ pain. However, pain can be excruciating to the point where you feel like you could just  

weep, forgoing anything positive in this world when that pain is not yours but is another’s. I'm sure  everyone has felt pain. 

Pain is ever too often confused with feelings of regret, instability, anger, and unparalleled rage. These  negative perceptions of pain often change your philosophy toward overcoming it. If you believe that  pain is something so negative, so drastic and so volatile that you will do whatever it takes to never  experience those emotions again, you are mistaken. It is not cowardly to fear pain, that is a part of what  makes us human. However, rejecting pain, confusing pain with negative emotions, and increasing the  instability of your mind is the most cowardly thing you can do.  

Pain is a learning experience. It’s that one harsh teacher who once scathingly waled down on you but  who you always credit for your greatest learnings. Pain is a part of life. It’s not something you can simply  avoid or pass through. Pain is one of the biggest learnings in your life that shapes you into the person  you are and makes you the person you are today. I would never have been strong enough to survive the  hierarchies and intricate societal groups of high school without that one teacher to pick me up after an  exhausting fall and have the willpower to do what was right for myself not what was right for the people  around me.

By Yash Desai