Are we done learning
from pain?
Pain is the police of the body. When we have a fever,
aches and horrible pain we can't ignore we seek medical
help. We have done the same politically, socially and
economically for too long. We wait until the system
is barely functional or breaks down and then we try
and fix the problem. In our personal life and in our
relationships we often live by trial and error with
highs and lows or the drama and pain of conflict. Society
mirrors this human condition.
Such an approach to life ever condemns us to taking
remedial actions. These kind of actions are often like
trying to push a stalled vehicle out of the mud --
before long we, too, become trapped by the mud, and
if we succeed in pushing the vehicle out, it still
does not run. Trying to solve problems from the quagmire
of the problem produces too many undesirable side effects,
like the traps of medications that would make us well,
but from which we must take much time and suffering
to get out of our system. Current economic bailouts
of failed banks and industries is like first aid for
a dying patient.
President elect Obama has inherited a country stuck
in the mud. Our leaders and our citizens cannot hope
to resolve all the systemic breakdowns and quagmires
left by the Bush administration and by corporate mismanagement
by entering the mud. Obama is faced with a daunting
task: to take a society that is finally seeking help
because the pain is so acute, but the conditions are
so ingrained that the solutions proposed are medicines
of last resort for a terminally ill patient. He has
come on the scene with the perspective of prevention
and working on projects to promote social and economic
development, but is constrained by past choices of
ignorant leaders and blind followers. Our leaders and
our nation, are at the same crisis point one faces
with New Year's resolutions or critical needs for a
lifestyle change. Solutions that are limited by old
habits and by past bad choices don't produce the desired
changes in the desired time. Like weight loss programs
we must fight an uphill battle with much accumulated
weight of the past holding back progress.
Our way out of the current political and economic
mess is a revolution of approach to our problems. This
is a fundamental psychological revolution that makes
us proactive rather than reactive beings. The human
organism has been so long programmed by taking action
to avoid pain that wisdom has seemed an achievement
limited to a few gifted individuals. The good news
is that we are finally taking an evolutionary step
as a society where we are realizing that the only way
to avoid pain is to make plans to solve our problems
in the long term and take cooperative actions to achieve
them. Our new leadership will soon be in place, but
it is up to all citizens to carry out their plans with
vigor. We must all become wise, and the conditions
are ripe for us to do so.
When we begin to move forward with the idealism and
hope that good leadership provides, we will no longer
need pain to teach us our needed lessons. Society will
become a new school where we learn by conceiving how
we want things to be, and then finding the like-minded
people to help us realize our plans. We will respect
each other and the constructive guidance of our ideals,
our core values and our sense of community. The wisdom
of collaboration and interdependance will open new
avenues for new solutions. We will suddenly recognize
the many communities for good that already are in place
to solve problems and reduce human and environmental
suffering. The opposite of learning from pain is to
set goals and then work to reach them. Pain will always
be there to teach us when we take a wrong turn or need
to pay attention to a problem, but the lesson will
not come too late and the pain will not be a punishment.
Pain will be recognized as a need that we must focus
on, but hopefully as we become wiser we will avoid
unnecessary suffering.
© 2008
Richard V. Sidy
