Turning pains to gains by Livy-Elcon Emereonye

Pain is an integral part of life. Life is full of pains. There is no gain without pains but there can be pains without gain but rather loss – sometimes many, unbearable losses.

At what point, and how, can pains lead to gains? Is it possible to consciously and unconsciously convert pains to gains? If yes, at what cost?

Pain is a complex experience consisting of a physiological and psychological response to a noxious stimulus. It is an unpleasant sensation and emotional experience that links to tissue damage. It is a warning mechanism that allows the body to react and prevent further tissue damage and can protect an organism by influencing it to withdraw from harmful stimuli. People feel pain when a signal travels through nerve fibers to the brain for interpretation. Pain can be short-term or long-term; it can stay in one place or spread around the body.

Pain can be a physical suffering due to injury, illness or a distressing sensation in a particular part of the body; it can be mental suffering or emotional torment or a combination of both!

Physical pain is a distressing feeling often caused by intense or damaging stimuli. The International Association for the Study of Pain’s defined pain as “an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage, or described in terms of such damage.” In medical diagnosis, pain is regarded as a symptom of an underlying condition.

Pain motivates the individual to withdraw from damaging situations, to protect a damaged body part while it heals, and to avoid similar experiences in the future. Most pain resolves once the noxious stimulus is removed and the body has healed, but it may persist despite removal of the stimulus and apparent healing of the body. Sometimes pain arises in the absence of any detectable stimulus, damage or disease. Pain is the most common reason for physician consultation in most developed countries. It is a major symptom in many medical conditions, and can interfere with a person’s quality of life and general functioning. Psychological factors such as social support, hypnotic suggestion, excitement, or distraction can significantly affect pain’s intensity or unpleasantness. In some debates regarding physician-assisted suicide or euthanasia, pain has been used as an argument to permit people who are terminally ill to end their lives!(Wikipedia)

There is no one without pains. Pains can be spontaneous, deliberate or accidental; self induced or externally inflicted; acute or chronic. The experience of pain is different for every person, and there are various ways to feel and describe it. And at one point or the other, we encounter pains, the perception and management of which mold us into the person we become.

It has been said that there is no softer pillow than a clear conscience yet some curse the soft pillow and the warm bed! The reason someone should curse the soft pillow is one of the reasons someone can cause you pains and feel happy to see you bend down your head and cry. The fastest way to know unfriendly friend is by fire so ignite the fire and let it burn. As it does, many things would come to limelight. Whatever the case, pain is real only to the sufferer.

The causes of pains can be as many and variable as are human beings. Every pain comes at some cost which includes among others time, money and emotions. However, there’s no gain without pain. This is why frictions sharpen iron and the beauty of gold comes through the furnace experience so endure that pain for the gain ahead. There is often light at the end of the tunnel.

By commission and omission, your enemies, pretended friends and meddlesome interlopers or even those seeking your attention by all means whom you have ignored or not noticed will be exposed for who they are. Their machinations will be nullified and they will see your advancement. On the way to the top, you may have some push, pull and attacks that might leave you with all manners of wound but don’t give up. Scares are good reminders for caution. Betrayal beautifies and emboldens. Every evil plan against you can be converted into a stepping stone for upward, progressive movement. Those that want you out and dead will witness and celebrate your elevation. Those who vowed that you won’t make it, will read your success story.

If you are upright and just, promoting equity and fairplay, anyone who digs a grave for you would be buried in that same grave. The wickedness of the wicked shall find and destroy them.

Therefore, rejoice and be glad indeed even in the mist of pains caused by enemies and pretended friends or natural forces that are beyond your control. Live to avoid pains but accept with gladness the inevitable ones – and treat that which refuses to resolve. Seek solution not sympathy!