The Gift of Pain (Productive Flourishing Pulse #512)

Pain has a way of clarifying what we truly love versus what we've merely gotten used to.

Over the winter break, I injured my right forearm while golfing with my siblings-in-law. That’s likely the bougiest line I’m going to write in a while, and I can’t tell if my ancestors would be proud or embarrassed.

My pain levels from the injury have been increasing for the last few weeks. Given that it's a forearm injury, it makes doing a lot of my historical go-tos a much different choice: instead of just "do I want to do this?" it's "is doing this worth the pain?" And that shift in the question has revealed more than I expected.

Because of the injury, I'm not playing video games nearly as much, which has made me realize that I'm unsure if I ever really enjoyed them. They were just an activity I could do with the time, money, and energy I had. I also realized that playing video games came from my childhood of being alone, unable to go anywhere, and bored. It was better than TV, especially since we couldn't afford cable, and there were only so many encyclopedias I could read or books I wanted to read that I could get from the school library.

The gift of pain in this case is that it's helped me drop an activity, and I'm unsure that I'm going back. Pain also flares up when I use my phone for more than a few minutes, which also suits me. I haven't gone back to my previous uses since the Glacier National Park trip in part because it’s not worth the pain to do so.

Working at my desk too long triggers the same pain. Feeling the pain while working is a much better incentive to stop than knowing it's going to catch up with me later. “Later me” is in much less pain and much less frustrated with past me who punted the pain.

Unfortunately, the pain flares can keep me from writing, and writing too much can sometimes create the flares. The interesting point here is that I miss writing and get super frustrated when I can't.

With the other activities, my vibe is mostly "Good. I don't want to be doing that anyway." But with writing, I despair and get demoralized. I don’t just miss the activity; I miss the part of myself that comes alive through it.

The gift of pain in the writing scenario is that it revealed something that matters to me deeply. And choosing to do the other activities I’m okay with not doing can keep me from writing, which I’m NOT okay with not doing.¹

Writing is apparently important enough to me to keep doing because, in the case of writing, “later me” is more on board with the “past me” who kept writing through the pain. (To a limit)

My forearm pain hasn't been a limiting factor to road trips on either the motorcycle or in the car, though neck pain can often limit how much I can ride the motorcycle. In those instances, it feels closer to how I feel when I can't write.

While I'd much rather not be in pain, I can recognize the gift of it. I also recognize that I'm in a middle-aged season where I can still appreciate it. In a few more decades, the pain will feel more like a curse I'm ready to be rid of, barring significant medical advances.

I've focused this piece on physical pain, but I've been thinking about how this extends to emotional pain and distress. Just as physical pain shows us what activities we truly value versus what we've merely gotten used to, emotional pain and distress point to something we care deeply about, or, even worse and more meta, they point to something we feel or believe we should care deeply about. To tie in Michael Franti, that’s how life reminds us we’re alive.

Better to care and hurt than go numb and forget how to live.

As I work my way through this injury, I hope I can relieve the pain for good. But I also hope I don't lose the gifts I've accrued from the pain. They’ve helped me remember what’s worth my time, energy, attention, and care.

~Charlie

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1. Yes, I’ve tried many text-to-speech tools, including AI tools. Rewriting and editing usually requires as much keyboard time, if not more, than it does for me to type and edit my drafts.