I have been living with chronic pain since May of 1995 when, dummy that I was, I crossed a street without a light and went flying over the hood of a car. My right leg was shattered, and healed with my right foot sticking out at a funny angle. This means that I walk on the foot the wrong way, and the bones have become quite deformed. I had corrective surgery, but since I did not have the leg re-broken and reset, the condition returned. Every step is painful, and I joke that my foot looks like a dragon's claw! On bad days I limp as badly as Chester on the old "Gunsmoke" series, and on good days I still walk funny.
Well, so what? As I have said to others, I don't have a time machine, do I? I can't go back in time and change what happened. External events are, after all, outside of our control. What I DO control is how I react to events. I have a choice: I can paint myself as a "victim" and annoy everyone with my complaints about how I feel, or I can simply choose to go on living. Is a funny story any less funny because my foot hurts? Is a beautiful song any less beautiful because of how my foot feels? I don't think so. Should I not appreciate the story or the song because of some pain? The Redskins still beat Dallas last night, didn't they? (I am a native of Washington, DC, so Hail to the Redskins!)
We can learn, if we make the effort, to treat external events in this way. It is not "natural," I grant, at least not at first. We can learn, however, to adopt this attitude towards what happens to us, if we choose to do so. What do we gain? Oh, nothing more than peace of mind, a pleasant attitude, and an ability to face life as if the "problem" never happened. Or, we can choose to go on about what a "victim" we are, but nothing changes, does it?
