There are, naturally, no absolutes. But, today I thought of something that happened to me recently. This past spring when I was so sick with something going on in my stomach, the doc and various specialists had ruled out everything they could think of. I had had every test they could think of and nothing had shown up. I still had such pain that it woke me up in the night and kept me from eating much of the day. One nice specialist after looking at all my test results offered OXY. He said it would help with the pain. I looked at him like he was crazy and declined.
The thing is that I have an addictive personality. I have had multiple and concurrent addictions most of my life. I smoked, ate chocolate and read murder mysteries at the same time for hours daily while those were my 'problem'. keeping secret stashes hidden in case of emergencies. So, having watched friends suffer from narcotics addictions, from having read the statistics about OXY addiction and how swift and how devastating it is, from knowing the suffering involved in getting clean, I declined the drugs offer.
This offer for the prescription came after a five minute office visit. I was suffering. I was hoping for some relief, but I was hoping for the relief of finding out what was wrong with me and treating it, not from taking very strong narcotics. I am pretty certain that I would have been trading up on the suffering ladder by making that decision.
I am sure you have a lot of examples in your life. have sometimes caused myself great mental agony by avoiding a confrontation or a decision that once made turned out to be nothing, nothing at all. Yet by avoiding dealing with the issue, I had carried around the backbreaking burden of "what ifs".
I was thinking of this today in larger terms, such as the Israel and Palestine problem .One day there will have to be a solution. Finding a workable solution will take great courage and selflessness on the part of the leaders. It will make daily life much more safe and comfortable for millions of people. It will return integrity to both sides. Postponing the inevitable is taking a tremendous toll on millions of people. Avoiding the suffering or hurt of making compromises and making a sane policy is increasing the suffering that the current failed policy is causing minute by minute and murder by murder. Pulling the thorn out from the bottom of my foot hurts, but not as badly as leaving it in a letting it get infected and making my whole body sick would.
When I extoll myself to "Carpe Diem", I usually am thinking about doing cool things like riding an elephant. I am thinking today that it would be of great practical value to "Carpe Diem" for things that are hard or painful and save further increased suffering in the future. "Take the bull by the horns" and all that.
This, of course, leads to the contemplation of what actually does motivate us. What finally did cause the tipping point in the Irish situation? What will make the Israelis think themselves into the shoes of the Palestinians and stop killing kids on beaches? Why do we often have to wait to hit bottom before we change? I don't know. I do know that as I get older, I notice that dealing with tough shit right now is often easier than waiting for it to get worse.
No comments:
Post a Comment