Not Minding That It Hurts

If the patches of skin right above my fingernails are dry, little strands can come loose and stand apart. Just now, I tried capping one of them. But instead of coming off, it grew longer and longer, taking more and more skin with it. By the time I pulled it loose, I had created the equivalent of a little cut in my skin.

Of course, the whole thing happened in one swift motion, so it’s not like I had time to deliberate, let alone reverse course and call off the failed attempt in skincare. “Ow! That hurts!” By the time I got the feedback I needed, it was too late.

As I felt the pain unfold and saw a tiny bit of blood rising from the skin underneath, I thought: “Great, now I have to deal with this, too. It’ll probably take a good two days before I no longer notice it. Damn skin strands!” Alas, a few seconds ticked away, and life went on.

I turned my attention to writing this blog, and a phrase popped into my head: “The trick is not minding that it hurts.”

In a scene from the 1962 war epic Lawrence of Arabia, the eponymous main character, played by Peter O’Toole, extinguishes a match with his bare fingers after lighting his colleague’s cigarette. Curious, William Potter tries the feat for himself—only to shake his hand as soon as it gets close to the flame. “Ooh! It damn well hurts!” he exclaims. “Certainly it hurts,” Lawrence counters. “Well, what’s the trick then?” “The trick, William Potter, is not minding that it hurts.”

I think my little finger-situation is the same—and so are many others in life. When I feel anxious about tomorrow’s workload, the trick is not minding that I’m anxious. Let the anxiety be, and it’ll eventually go in its own time. When I feel sad that I won’t have time to do everything I planned on doing, the trick is to not mind that I’m sad. If I let time carry on, eventually, it’ll carry me into happier times. And when I stub my toe, slip on ice, or feel groggy after a night of bad sleep, well…

Pain can take infinite forms. Awareness needs only one. Recognize the pain, and accept it. That’s how to not mind that it hurts.

Nik

Niklas Göke writes for dreamers, doers, and unbroken optimists. A self-taught writer with more than a decade of experience, Nik has published over 2,000 articles. His work has attracted tens of millions of readers and been featured in places like Business Insider, CNBC, Lifehacker, and many others. Nik has self-published 2 books thus far, most recently 2-Minute Pep Talks. Outside of his day job and daily blog, Nik loves reading, video games, and pizza, which he eats plenty a slice of in Munich, Germany, where he resides.