The Ownership of Pain and Suffering

Has this ever happened to you -?

Let's say you experienced something very painful or difficult. Let's use the example of the place you lived in burnt down. You have rebuilt or found a new place, dealt with the insurance company, all sorts of troubles, but now you are ok.
Not too long after, a similar thing happens to someone you know. Except in this case, the damage wasn't as bad. Maybe just one room in their home was damaged or there was water and smoke damage because it happened in the apartment next door. Despite there being only minor damage compared to your situation, this person is very upset and telling everyone how hard a time they are having. This makes you furious inside, because what you went through was worse and you can't believe this person is making such a big deal out of "nothing". It's almost like they're making a farce of what you went through!

But wait, what just happened there?

You just claimed possession of an experience. A bad one at that. You're angry because you believe you own the monopoly on the right to feel bad when a house burns down. What you went through was the WORST in the world and no one else is allowed to feel as bad as you. You may even claim their experience is now invalidating yours somehow. As if it somehow threatens your pain.

Is that what you really want though?

It's important to remember that our egos do some very silly things some times. You may have gotten more attention when you were suffering and you don't want any of that attention turned away. But that's negative attention, for a negative situation. Do you really need that?

It's also important to remember that pain and suffering are relative. We feel things differently, but no person's pain is more or less important than another's. Sure, there are times when we take things out of context and a lot of it has to do with our outlook on life, but we can't and we probably shouldn't try to quantify pain. For some, the death of a family pet would be harder to deal with than the death of a parent. For others it would be the other way around. But it is not for us on the outside to judge.

The most positive and compassionate thing you can do with the experience of your pain is help others when they go through similar trials. Do not say, "you shouldn't feel bad because only one room of your house burnt down, but my whole house burnt down so that's worse!", but rather, "I have an idea of what you're going through, would you like to know what helped me get through it?". You might find your pain diminishes with time. If you share the load with someone else, you're only carrying half. It's that simple :)

The Ownership of Pain and Suffering

Remember What Is Precious Amongst All Your Stuff

Most of us have treasured material possessions. In fact, many of us simply have too many! But out of all those things, I'm not going to ask you what you can't live without (you can live without any possessions!) but what would make you very sad if they were lost. What 5 things would upset you the most to lose?

Think hard....

Perhaps a locket that was your great-great grandmother's?
Childhood photographs?
Your iPod?
A particular book?
A celebrity's autograph?
The hat your father wore?

Keep thinking....

Are they things that can be replaced?
Are they tangible or intangible, like memories?

It doesn't really matter. I'm not going to argue one type is better than the other. Nor will I try to convince you that you should give up all your possessions and live in a cave. What I want you to do is become conscious of the value you place on certain things and really evaluate what matters and what you can really live without.

We tend to become very possessive very quickly. If we claim a seat on the bus or subway, we start to become very protective of that space, which actually doesn't belong to us at all! It becomes "my" chair - something I have that others don't. We pause when we have to "give it up" to someone else, though it was never ours to begin with. We do the same thing with material possessions and the longer we own them, the more attached we become. Habits develop and we proclaim that we simply cannot live without them!

While I don't wish this upon anyone, if there was a fire and your house burnt down - your family and pets are fine but nothing physical is left - what would upset you most to lose? Even more importantly - why?

I think, if you sit down and really think about it, you'll realize it isn't hard to see what is really important and that you really can live with a lot less than you think.

When I was a teenager, my school sent us away from home to a ski camp. During that time, we met some other teens, most notably a group of Equadorians. Us girls snuck into their cabin to talk to them. After some stilted conversation, I mentioned I was upset I did not bring my camera with me to remember this moment and one of the young men said it didn't matter, the best camera is the mind.
OK, maybe it was a cheesy line, but honestly, your memories are yours, not to be stolen by anyone. You can't lose them one day while walking to the bank. Even if you are afflicted with Alzheimer's, you still have *some* memories.
Of course, photographs and physical objects help those memories surface and make them more tangible, but they are not 100% necessary.

This whole exercise is just to help you keep things in perspective and become conscious of your possessiveness. If we don't get too attached to things, obviously it won't hurt so much when we lose them, but since we often do get attached, just try to keep in perspective what their loss would mean. Do your best to keep those things safe, but if you do lose them, remember you always have your memories. It's that simple.

Remember What Is Precious Amongst All Your Stuff