Pain Does Not Change You. It Reveals You.

For a very long time, I have wondered, how can pain be defined?

If we think about it, theoretically, we can define so many emotions.

Happiness seems easier to explain. Joy. Contentment. That quiet feeling that life is okay.

But pain. What exactly is pain? I have always searched for an answer during the most painful moments of my life.

At least for emotional pain, I’ve started thinking of it as the distance between reality and the reality we desperately wanted.

What happened versus what we wished had happened.

And I’ve started believing that the way we travel through that distance reveals a lot about who we are.

Because pain gives us excuses.

What we do with those excuses reveals our character.

And I came to this realisation from a story.

Well, I had a friend during my bachelor college days. Actually, he is the only person whom I can give the tag of best friend.

So, during college, he fell in love with a girl. And I mean, really, deeply.

I was actually really happy for him too. They looked happy together. He cared for her. He also introduced her to his family.

But love can change people. So was the case for him.

He kind of made the relationship the center of his life. That was not healthy at all, but who knows all this at that age.

One night, I was sleeping when the phone rang. I looked at the clock, it was 2:20 am.

It was his call. I picked it up.

And for the first few minutes, he did not say anything. He just cried.

When things settled, I asked him what happened. He said his girlfriend just broke up with him, out of the blue. Blocked him from everywhere. He tried contacting, called her friends, but nothing worked. She just said that it’s all over.

I felt sorry for him. I knew how much he loved her.

That night we talked for an hour about how he dreamt of having a life with her and he wanted to take care of her for the rest of life. He imagined a future together. He did not see it coming at all.

He was confused. He was angry.

The next few weeks were rough for him. He barely ate. He was crying. He was spending sleepless nights. We were in constant contact so I saw most of that.

But it’s during that time, I saw a new version of him.

He did cry a lot over the calls with me, but never for once, he called her again.

He had every excuse to let the pain consume him.

To neglect himself. To become bitter. To keep chasing someone who had already left.

And for a while, honestly, I thought he might.

But he didn’t.

Instead, he focused on himself. He chose a different path. He started lifting weights. He started reading more. He made some new friends.

And he did none of them before this.

Slowly, he got back to his life. And today he is actually doing good. He looks fit. He is taking care of his family. Bought his first bike with his own money.

We were talking one day when he said, “You know, I think all of this was already somewhere inside me. The pain just brought it out.”

It really stayed with me.

His pain didn’t put discipline inside him.

It didn’t suddenly give him self-respect, resilience or courage.

Maybe those things were already there.

Life had simply never demanded them from him before.

And perhaps that’s one strange thing about our hardest moments.

They strip away the version of ourselves we thought we were.

And underneath…

We meet the person who was there all along.

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This post was previously published on medium.com.