“We Can’t Learn Without Pain”
We can’t learn without pain. This is another quote from Aristotle about how negatives can be turned into positives. When you are confronted by a challenge in your life, you are forced to push yourself to become stronger. In this case, you cannot learn unless you are confronted with something that forces you to change your ways.
But why is pain necessary to learn? Well, if you do not experience pain or anything unpleasant, you are less likely to think that you need to change what you are doing. When you experience pain, it shocks you into reexamining assumptions you have, or things that you do. That reexamination makes it more likely that you will learn. It makes you more likely to rethink your assumptions. To take a different point of view.
Pain also makes you compassionate. When you experience pain, you are more likely to understand the ordeal of others who experience pain. It goes from a concept to a reality. Pain also makes you wiser. It makes you look at the bigger picture of life. You are more likely to think about what is important in your life. Change so that you get more out of your life.
When you experience pain, you stop and question why you felt it. That very act is necessary for growth. This doesn’t mean that all growth comes from experiencing pain. But one of the main instigators of changing your behavior is to be confronted with an obstacle, challenge, or pain.
The previous sentence is key. The entire premise of this quote rests on the idea of the term ‘pain’ including obstacles and challenges. Because they are a type of pain. Or rather, pain is a type of obstacle that we must get past. If we do not have pain or challenges in our lives, we become too comfortable and less resilient. This statement is easier to say once past the suffering or challenge one faces, but it is still true.
Statements like these sound like cliches. In a way, they are. But understanding the underlying truth behind these statements makes them go from cliche to real. Quotes are cliches when we don’t understand why they are so true. If you understand how suffering forces you to build character, you understand how pain can help you learn.
Pain to a certain degree is necessary and unhelpful. Of course the fact that pain can help you learn does not mean all pain does. But a lot of the pain that we do not see the benefits in actually are beneficial to us. We should keep that in mind as we confront pain and challenges through our lives.
We can’t learn without pain. While it would be great to go through life without too much suffering and pain, a certain amount is necessary. And even in the case of suffering that is more than necessary, having this mindset can help us make the best of the challenges that we do face. There is no escaping pain and challenges. We have no choice but to make the best of them.
