The Rogue King

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in pursuit of pain

A couple of years back, I decided to join a gym. Yeah, stop laughing.

I’m not too sure what the reasons were, maybe it was a moment of madness. Or perhaps, a moment of sudden realization that my body was slowly wasting away, along with my mind. Or, was it a need to look better, to feel a sense of self worth in my physical appearance?

I’ll never know.

Truth is, I was a lazy bum, slaving away for hours on end infront of the computer, taking breaks only when the lack of sunlight made me pale (yeah, given my complexion, you can imagine…)

So I joined a gym. Signed up for the early morning sessions, 7:30 - 8:30 am. I was so excited I could not sleep. I even bought special shoes for the gym because all my other shoes were too… inappropriate.

The first day was a nightmare.

Absolute, horrible, unbelievable pain. I couldn’t walk straight, I had to jump on a boda-boda to get back home. The whole day, I couldn’t walk, or stretch. I almost quit, but vowed I would stick by my decision.

The second day was even worse. I woke up with my entire body aching like I’d been beaten to near death. I had to force myself to get up, wearing my clothes was nearly impossible, but somehow I made it to the gym.

Funny enough, this time the session wasn’t so bad, the stretches helped me work out the sore muscles, and I got through the hour without complaining too much.

When I got back home, I realised I was hungry enough to eat a pig. Unfortunately, there was no pig lying around waiting to be skewered, so I settled for a full loaf of bread, a litter of milk and like 500ml of yoghurt. Plus a bunch of bananas, two glasses of orange juice, a boiled egg and six chapatis.

Yeah. Seriously.

Then I passed out.

When I woke up, I couldn’t move my entire body, every single muscle was screaming like it had been seared with a hot iron. I didn’t work that day, I could not for the life of me move my hands, my joints were too stiff to bend.

The third day, the muscles had calmed down, but the ache was still there, dominating my every thought and action. Somehow I managed to drag myself back to the gym, and got through the session. By this time, I was asking myself what I’d gotten myself into.

On the fourth day, there was a very heavy early morning rainstorm, there was no way I was going out in that heavy shower. Perfect excuse. With the silliest grin on my face, I pulled the covers over my head and went back to sleep.

The next day, it rained early morning again, and it continued for a week.The wet season had come.

I never went back to gym.

Looking back, I give myself many reasons for not completing my gym foray. Excuses about the instructor, about the rain, about the inconvenience. But it was only recently that the truth hit me like a sledgehammer to the chest.

I was running away from the pain.

We’re all wired to avoid pain. All of us. The core of our reflex actions are built on the primitive urge to flee from the source of our pain. Touch the hot side of a frying pan, the body wires itself to never do that again. Fall hard from stairs, the body remembers the pain, and subconsciously, every effort is made not to fall again.

How do we master our pain? How do we master our fears?

By facing them. By deciding to stand still and face the source of our pain. And by choosing, against all our hardwired instincts, to walk towards that pain and embrace it. Some overcome the pain by taking pleasure in the pain itself, which, of course can have some weird consequences.

I have never been much of a quitter, really. I stick with the decisions and choices I have made until everything I’ve tried fails, and until there is nothing more that I can do. But I know many times, I have chosen the easy way out, in decision making, in responsibilities, in leadership, in trusting, in faith. In many areas of my life, I have chosen to avoid the pain.

And I have come to realise that the pain was temporary, but the result of avoiding that pain is permanent, and I will always live with it, and it will always haunt me more than the pain ever could.

So now I’m learning to walk towards my fears. I am learning to embrace that which frightens, and hurts me the most.

I know that at the end of the pain, lies victory, so I’m learning… to pursue the pain.

—

Offtopic:

Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.
- Kahlil Gibran

Pain was their body’s way of telling them that they’d pushed themselves to their limits, which was exactly where they were supposed to be.
- Richard Marcinko

Pain nourishes courage. You cannot be brave if you’ve only had wonderful things happen to you.
- Mary Tyler Moore

We must all suffer one of two things: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret or disappointment.
- Jim Rohn

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