How Pain Makes Us All Better Humans
I’ve never been one to welcome pain into my life and I imagine you’re not much different. But did you know that YOUR pain has a purpose? Wouldn’t you like to know that it somehow makes the world a better place? It does. Read further for three powerful ways your pain and mine makes us all better humans.
As members of humanity, we are all intertwined. It’s just that we don’t always realize it until something shows us we are.
Humanity is a bit like a mesh. When a weight gets placed anywhere along it the surrounding fabric stretches to help bear the load. When a load is placed on us those nearby are included in sharing its weight and if a burden is applied to those around us it likewise impacts us. Our pain influences others and they influence us back. That influence is invariably positive.
Pain creates need which creates opportunity for connection.
Pain has an ability to unite. It breaks down barriers and helps us see our interdependence. It causes us to understand that we are really only one race—the human race. We are a family.
In this way, the pain and struggle in life that we so often desperately seek to escape actually bring benefit. It benefits not only us but others. As we personally experience and share the pain in life, all of humanity is strengthened. Here are three key ways how:
1- Pain Brings A Sense of Belonging
When we know someone who is going through a difficult time our natural tendency is to want to help. This desire can happen even if they don’t ask for it. It’s built right into us.
How do YOU feel when you do meet their need in some way? You feel wonderful, don’t you? You feel needed.
But more importantly, the ones you are helping benefit from this same sense of belonging.
If such a person is shy and generally isolated they can find connection as their community rallies around their cause.
Or, if they are well connected already, they can know the bond is real. Our day-to-day relationships can become so superficial over time. The sharing of pain shatters that facade.
But without pain, the lack of connection would never be challenged. Whether you are the one experiencing it or you are the one alleviating it, pain brings a sense of belonging.
Pain promotes community as a burden is shared together.
In America, there is currently a very divisive atmosphere. Party lines and political stances are hard. The current climate is “Us versus Them.” It feels a bit like the classic rock verse, “Everybody’s right, everybody’s wrong.”
But not too long ago America, and some would say the world, was at the zenith of community. All of the normal boundaries all but disappeared and for a year or so we all felt like family.
What made the difference? Pain.
2001 was one of the world’s greatest tragedies with nearly 3,000 people killed. It was difficult for someone in America to not know somebody impacted by the disaster as we all collectively mourned.
Patriotism soared to all-time heights. We only knew one label: Americans. There were no Republicans and Democrats, no religious and atheist, no black and white. We were simply identified by our common bond and that bond was created by the sharing of our pain.
Never before had every citizen felt like they belonged so powerfully. We all had a sense of community that could not be stripped away.
But as our scars healed over and our memories faded ever so slightly, isolation and division have again peaked.
Whether pain occurs on the singular level or at the scale of the entire world, pain is what creates community and a sense of belonging.
2- Pain Promotes Love
With the rise of popular media, love has undergone a transformation in its concept to something romantic. In this sense, it is an emotion which is inconsistent at best.
Our songs, movies, and television shows even confuse it with lust which is really only about oneself.
But real love is an expression of sacrifice for others. It is an action.
The truth is that love sometimes needs a prompt. Oh sure, it’s relatively easy to generate anemic amounts of love but real, sacrificial love where someone truly benefits from my involvement can require some help to dislodge it.
And the best way to dislodge love is the presence of pain.
Love meets the needs of others and their difficult situations provide the opportunity. When a person loses their home, or their health, or a loved one, it sets the stage for true love to be expressed.
But what if there never was need in this world, either in yourself or others? We would soon become completely self-sufficient and have no need to give or receive genuine love. This world would become a very cold place indeed.
Pain is a process of life that ensures the flow of love. It naturally produces the need and motivation to ensure its continued application. Love is undeniably one of the highest attributes of humanity and life’s pain makes sure it is abundant.
3- Pain Brings Meaning & Purpose
How disheartening it would be to believe that the pain we experience in life had no purpose. But pain does have purpose in so many ways.
For those experiencing it, their pain allows them to impact others in many important ways (see 3 Reasons God Allows Pain). With that understanding, we can find comfort in the midst of very difficult times. It brings your struggle meaning.
Others benefit as well in that they can find their own purpose in your pain. Fulfilling a person’s needs in a difficult time whether mentally, physically, or spiritually brings a tremendous satisfaction. It meets a basic human longing.
I’m convinced that I can climb any mountain as long as I see the purpose of it.
I doubt there is any human alive who has experienced so much pain and written so prolifically about it than Viktor E. Frankl.
Frankl was a Nazi death camp survivor, imprisoned amongst the atrocities for nearly three years. Interestingly, he was a neurologist and psychiatrist which gave him some unique insights into the painful experience he and thousands of others were experiencing.
Because of his great proficiency with understanding the human mind he was allowed to practice psychiatry in a care ward. He counseled others through their pain and helped them find ways to continue on.
Approximately a year after his release, Frankl published perhaps his most famous work, Man’s Search for Meaning. He has since become one of the most regarded authorities regarding the relationship of pain and meaning.
Frankl has many great quotes attributed to him but what follows is probably the most relevant to this discussion:
“If there is a meaning in life at all, then there must be a meaning in suffering. Suffering is an ineradicable part of life, even as fate and death. Without suffering and death, human life cannot be complete.”
Take Away
As difficult as it can be, pain strengthens humanity. It connects us as a whole by creating a sense of belonging, by promoting love, and by giving meaning and purpose to our lives.
None of us will ever be able to escape the pain of life. So let’s accept it. Let’s admit our need for assistance and let’s offer it when necessary.
If you know someone today who is going through a difficult time, go ahead and contact them and let them know you care. Offer to help in any way that they need it. Even if they don’t take your offer you will feel markedly better. And if they do express a need, meet it right away. Don’t delay—it’s too easy for your own distraction to give you an excuse to not follow through.
If you are in need, try reaching out. Let others know that you could use some help. It may just be someone to talk to, it may be a genuine financial need, or it could be anything else. For most people, this could be the most difficult thing done in a while. This type of admission of need requires humility, something we often find in short supply.
But as you do reach out, know that you are making humanity better and are thereby becoming a better human yourself. You are patching yourself into that fabric of humanity so that it, and you, can become stronger.
Aaron Force is a blogger from Seattle, Washington. He writes from a point of authenticity, as an outpouring of a spiritual calling and awakening that occurred in April of 2015. His purpose is to help better the lives of his readers with instruction, insight, and inspiration related to spirituality and self-improvement. The story of his remarkable calling can be found (here).
Aaron Force is a blogger from Seattle, Washington. He writes to educate others about the nature of an expanded consciousness to evolve humanity. Aaron unexpectedly experienced his own profound awakening and ego transcendence in 2015 and soon understood that the qualities of his own experience (a greater expansion and evolution in his life) could be applied to mankind collectively.