Pain

After watching Valentine's Day last night with my girlfriends I got to thinking about pain, suffering, knowledge and outcome.

When we were little, it didn't matter how many times our parents would tell us not to do something. "Don't rock on your chair," "Don't jump on the bed," "Stop eating sand!"

No matter how many times our parents would advise us to stop doing something stupid, we only ceased to stop once we'd been hurt: once our chair flipped backwards, once we fell head-first off the bed, once we choked on a seashell.

What makes us ignore advice until we figure it out the hard way?

Is it curiosity, stubbornness or plain stupidity?

The same applies for friends in dead-end relationships. "Don't call him back," "Don't let him talk to you like that," "He will hurt you again."

We tend to advise our friends as much as we can to save them from pain. In fact, we go to great lengths: threatening to cut their boyfriend's balls off, taking our friends' phones away, being totally harsh and honest with our friends... through repetition we become frustrated.

Why don't people listen?

In the movie last night, Ashton Kutcher advised his best friend not to hop on a plane to surprise her boyfriend because he had recently found out that he was married.

After her best friend told her he had witnessed this infidelity with his own eyes, she chose to go anyway.

Why?

Why put yourself through it all when somewhere, deep, deep down you know that all of this pain and suffering is just prolonging an ugly fate?

Perhaps it is the curiosity that resides in almost every human. Perhaps without pain or suffering we wouldn't realize how lucky we are when we do find something good.

Perhaps we must lose to win. We must learn the hard way.

I can pretty much guarantee that when ten good friends are telling one friend not to date a certain someone anymore she will mentally block out every single thing they say... until she is ready.

Until she's been hurt enough. Until there is absolute sufficient damage done.

So while everyone is on their own time and may have to contrive quite a few more bumps and bruises along the way, one of the most difficult parts of the whole pain/suffer experience may be having to watch your friend go through it.

While our friend will eventually understand that their relationship is in the ruins, we must understand that this process may be long and that it is now more than ever that they need us the most.

Listen Learn Love