The Greater Pain

Photo copyright: Kevin Carter

“I wish I were a child again because skinned knees are better than broken hearts.” It often happens that our pain seems to be unjustified and too much to ourselves. This situation arises when we give too much importance to our own self. Even a casual glance around us is sufficient to shake us out of the self-centred approach towards pain and suffering. The above photo by Kevin Carter serves as an alarm bell. It forces us to shake ourselves out of the personal grief. Silence prevails there but often silence is just another word for pain. It was O Henry in his story ‘Grief’ who wrote “To whom shall I tell my grief!”

But then by seeing things in larger perspective, we often see our personal grief dwarfed and even vanished after a while. I am reminded of an incident I heard long ago. There was a poor boy, who used to grumble about the condition of his school shoes. But a day came when he stopped whining because he had seen a boy, who had not feet...

So while handling grief we should not stretch it that it covers the whole of our life. Instead, learn to live with it because forgetting is not that easy. Living with it means keeping in mind the troubles of the world. But one thing which needs to be kept in mind here is that focussing too much on the greater cause too might lead to creeping in of depressing tendencies. In that case the shift from personal grief to the suffering of humanity would be like jumping from frying pan into fire. It’s just that we have to accept the state of things (no matter how difficult the task is!). Acceptance means giving in to the incompetence of life. It is this sense of lacking that moves us forward...we learn to put up with what life offers...instead of wanting to have something, we learn to want what we have. And the caravan marches on....