Have you ever stopped to ponder the relationship between opposing ideals?

For example have you ever considered the balance between beauty and pain? I think it is one of the ultimate paradoxes! Pain can result in beauty by transforming people into stronger individuals, but for the most part we strive to eliminate the suffering in the world. Now with that reasoning, logic would dictate that the more pain and conflict we eliminate from our own personal experience, the more potential for beauty we eliminate.

Now keep in mind here that we are not talking about torture or doing harm to others – we are simply talking about pain. The kind we inflict upon ourselves, physically, mentally and emotionally. Self-inflicting pain can create a kind of positive change (and even beauty), yet to inflict pain on others is not beautiful.

It is my belief that we need our pain, that it has a role in our life. We need pain to remind us of our vulnerability and make us constantly alert and aware of the beauty of the world around us, but we also need an end to our pain because that is what motivates us forward. It is this tension between pain and ending pain that provides resolution, the spark to get over the pain and on to the joy!

It is possible and necessary to embrace suffering in our personal lives and find beauty and dignity by doing so while also working to relieve the suffering of others. By working to end the pain of others yet not running from it ourselves, we are truly creating a tension that is capable of creating not only beauty, but real resolutions to end real problems.

So let us not run from or evade our pain in this life. If we continue to cultivate a world that fears pain and does not embrace it and conquer it as a dignified aspect of their humanity, what will we be left with?

Just a little food for thought!