Looking back over my life, it seems to me that I have
learned the most when I felt the greatest pain. My mother's death, for example, made me more
profoundly aware of the beauty in nature. My capacity for
finding joy in the most ordinary events (watching a flower open, leaves turning red, a bird
taking a bath) seems to
deepen each time I live through great sorrow. Death makes life more precious;
frustration makes success more fulfilling; failure makes the next
accomplishment more meaningful.
In order to feel deeply it is necessary to feel everything. It is impossible to choose. You can't really know how great is your sense of joy at a baby's birth or your satisfaction at succeeding at a hard job unless you are also deeply aware of the
anguish of
separation and the pain of failure. It's through the capacity to feel that we discover ourselves and others and
explore the
potential for a full,
significant life.
This is an especially crucial issue for parents. Our natural
inclination is to try to protect children from pain. We have the
mistaken notion that if a child is happy we are doing a good job; if a child is sad we are failing as parents. But giving children the message that happy is good and sad is terrible decreases their capacity to
explore the full range of human experiences.
Children need to experience such feelings as they grow up; it helps them to develop the patience, persistence and ability to cope that they'll need when a scientific experiment fails, or a low grade is received after diligent study. There is nothing so terrible about failing and feeling pain; what hurts in the long run is not
trying because of the fear of pain.
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