The same can be applied emotionally. If you’ve felt the pain of regret, you’ll learn to make better and wiser choices in the future. If you’ve had the experience of a break up, you can better comfort and give advice to a friend in a similar situation. If you’ve endured a tough period in your life, you emerge stronger and more ready to deal with upcoming challenges and obstacles.
However, pain can also cause misdirection depending on how we interpret. The pain of losing a close friend might make it difficult for one to trust, connect and open up to other strangers again. That’s also learning – but in a way that may not always be helpful or beneficial for us.
So without pain in our lives, we’d constantly be entering dangerous situations and hurting ourselves repetitively without realising. We’d be stagnant in terms of growth and we’d probably be very apathetic and aloof towards others. But we could also let ourselves be more vulnerable, silly and fearless. By Eunice Lim
