Loving through pain and joy

I haven’t posted in almost a month. I think about posting all the time. I’ll be standing in Target, waiting to spend a portion of my kids’ inheritance, thinking about something I should blog about.

But then the moment passes, and I don’t sit down to write.

Or worse, I second guess whether the topic is something I can write intelligently about (which is a fancy way of saying I am not sure whether you’d find my post worth reading).

Why do we (you, me, all of us) care so much about what everyone else thinks? Because, of course, everyone wants to be loved.

A big portion of Facebook involves managing what everyone else thinks about us, doesn’t it? I know, it’s a great way to stay connected with friends and family. I get that and I wholeheartedly agree.

But what about when we’re feeling down? What about when life sucks? Most of us are much more likely to only share the things we think might make us look good, than those that show failure, weakness or vulnerability, whether online or off. We want others to love us, so we seek to only show them the loveable parts of us.

And so our Facebook updates are filled with photos of happy, smiling faces, trips to beautiful places, and stories of successful races. (OK, that last one was only because it rhymed.) Likewise, we greet each other with rote “How are you? Fine.” statements that do little to gauge a person’s true emotional status.

But here’s what is interesting: research has shown that

…the more we suppress negative emotions and create the false impression that we don’t have them, the more our peers underestimated the prevalence of these feelings and the lonelier and more dissatisfied they feel. That suggests that our extra efforts at “image management” — whether in person or online — probably worsens feelings of isolation and distress in our friends, by adding to their impression that ours and others’ lives are happier and more successful than theirs. [Read the whole article here.]

Hmm… I guess the point is not that we should be downers all the time, but that when we sometimes let others feel our pain, it can not only help us, but also those around us.

I just finished reading a phenomenal book called Divergent, in which the main character (Tris) struggles when her friends become jealous over her repeated successes. They don’t know her inner struggles, so they only see the apparent ease with which she wins everything. Her instructor gives her this advice:

“He hurt you because your strength made him feel weak. No other reason. The others won’t be as jealous if you show some vulnerability.”

I suspect we don’t watch movies about difficult subjects because we love to be depressed, but rather because we find solace in identifying with the pain of others, and by being encouraged by their subsequent growth and success, by their “rise from the ashes.” Of course, in a book or a movie, we see the pain and the joy in a matter of hours. In real life, it can take weeks, months, or even years, to see the big picture. Herein lies the challenge.

My family’s recent struggles have given me an enormous amount of compassion for the silent pain of others, particularly when you’re “in the thick of it” and Hope seems so far away. You never know the loneliness hidden behind those gleaming vacation photos, or the sorrow masked by the seemingly carefree existence of a friend.

But, maybe, if we take the time to share each other’s pain, as well as the joy — especially when the resolution isn’t immediately apparent — all of our lives just might be a whole lot richer for it.