No Pain No Gain: A Contextual Look

We all have heard the proverb “No pain No Gain”. I am not sure if you have given it much thought. But if we give it a thought, we might have differing opinions about it. In the context of doing hard work to progress in life this sounds great. But how do we apply this or translate this in the current context of the pandemic, where we have lost our loved ones, or lost our livelihoods? How do we react when we go through suffering and mental pain for no apparent fault of ours and for no apparent gain that we can foresee soon?

I must confess that I have no answer for those questions. But what I would like to attempt to do is to examine this aspect of pain and suffering and see how we can cope with it better.

In an earlier blog, I discussed the victim mentality that some of us get into when faced with pain and suffering. We ask questions about why me, why now etc, and feel defeated and stay defeated.  That is certainly not going to help anyone. So what can we do when we are going through pain and suffering? I offer two suggestions that can turn around our reaction to pain and suffering.

1. Consider pain and suffering as an opportunity (God give opportunity, if you have a spiritual bend of mind) to count your blessings, count what you have and develop an attitude of gratitude.

Arthur Ashe was the first black man to win a Grand Slam. He is believed to have got infected with HIV/AIDS during a blood transfusion during a surgery.  When it became known, people all over the world started asking questions on why him? The questions reached him and his response was this.

2. Consider Pain as Gift

No, you didn’t read it wrong. I mean it. It is a gift that tells us where to draw the lines and how to enjoy the pleasure of life responsibly. Let me illustrate this with a medical study.

Dr Paul Brand (1914-2003) worked amongst and studied leprosy in India.  He establishes the fact that what lepers suffer with most is not because of the decease per se, but because the decease acts as a very very strong anesthetic and takes away their sensation of pain. They cannot feel pain and thus they end up hurting themselves (without feeling anything) repeatedly. They put their hands in fire because they cannot feel the heat.  They walk on broken glass because they cannot feel the pain when glass pierces their feet. Even common activities like holding a mop or turning a key, or working with a screwdriver could damage their skins and muscles, because they just cannot fathom how much pressure to put on those things. Simple shoes can cause infections because they do not know when the shoe hurts and causes bruises. Imagine a nail piercing your foot when you walk and it is staying there, and getting more and more deep into your flesh because you did not feel the nail piercing your foot. Imagine not being able to itch when a mosquito bites you, imagine waking up with your toe missing, because a rat chewed it off and you didn’t feel a thing. It is difficult for you and me to fathom this, because we take these things for granted. And we are able to take these things for granted because we can feel pain. Pain helps us to stop doing things that could damage us more permanently. Pain warns us to stay away from activities that could be harmful. Pain tells us when to stop. That is why Dr Brand boldly states “Thank God for inventing Pain. I don’t think He could have done a better job. It is beautiful.”

Dr. Brand knows the value of pain, because he raised and spent millions of dollars  to design and manufacture gadgets like special gloves, special shoes, special audio devices etc, to enable lepers to be able to “feel” pain artificially.

Are we ready to use pain and suffering for developing an attitude of Gratitude? Can we consider pain as a gift given to us? Servant Leaders are able to cope with pain and suffering better, because of the behaviour of Emotional Healing that I wrote about in an earlier blog. Servant Leaders put the need of others above their own, as we discussed in a previous blog on putting others first. So instead of focusing on their own pain and suffering Servant Leaders focus on others pain and suffering and ask the question “what can I do to alleviate someone else’s pain today?

What is your response going to be?  Join the Servant Leadership Movement, manage your pain gainfully and help others manage their pain.

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Dr. Madana Kumar is UST’s Servant Leadership Evangelist. You can connect with him here or write to him here.