Log #18 (Happy Endings)

One of the hardest things I've discovered about writing this journal is to try and sound positive on those days where I feel good emotionally. Having to write about pain is naturally a negative subject, but even in the midst of all the pain I have good things in my life. I have to remind myself of that fact sometimes when things are particularly difficult. Really it's hard to smile and find things humorous when I'm wrapped in a blanket of agony, but I find happiness in my wife and children. I am very proud of each of them and how they live their lives. If it were not for them, I would have given up long ago.

Now that I've said that, it's a bummer that I have to follow it up with my catalogue of pain. I know it's hard to read this if you're following this blog on a daily basis, but the whole point of this exercise is to show that chronic pain never lets up.

People want to believe, "It can't be THAT bad." Because to accept that it is THAT bad, is feel a sense of hopelessness or despair. No one wants to see other people suffer. When we see a news story about someone who is battling cancer we want to see the story where the person beat the odds. We want to walk away from it feeling that everything is right in the world. We are a society that craves for happy endings. The main character of the movie needs to be healed in the end, the girl needs to get the guy, good conquers evil.

Really think about it for a minute... Most of the time if you know the movie has a sad ending you'll avoid it. Those are the movies that get the Oscars, but no one ever sees. Or how about the movie that follows a storyline and abruptly ends leaving us to wonder what happened in the end? First of all you're upset that it ended without a resolution and then you're upset because you didn't get to see the happy ending.

Life is hard enough so we turn our backs on the unhappy endings because we don't want to feel worse than we already are. I think that is why we don't want to believe that someone we know or love may not get better. We hope that with the right pill or surgery everything will be back to normal and we can go back to our normal life.

Living by that standard is to live without true compassion. Without suffering we would never truly understand how important that happy ending really is. For whatever reason, be it fate, bad luck, God's will, or Devil's curse some people suffer tremendous hardships while others have lives that are far less complicated. Notice that I said, "far less complicated." No one lives an easy life. No one is free of disappointments or stresses. The truth remains that some have to deal with a lot more problems than others and instead of turning our backs and hoping they have a happy ending we need to face reality head on, remember what our own suffering feels like, and have empathy for our fellow human beings.

None of us knows when the clock will toll and our own time for great hardship will come. Rest assured when that time comes, we'll want the same compassion that in the past we neglected to give.

These are the reasons why I write. We need to face the reality that sometimes there are no happy endings and instead of turning our backs and thinking that our friend or family member with chronic pain will eventually get better, we should instead do what we can to understand their condition and do what we can to comfort them. Instead of avoiding them until they get better we should be visiting them now. Instead of telling them what we think they should do to feel better we should realize that they are already seeking every avenue they can to find relief and what they really need is encouragement to never give up.