A few years ago, I was running the course. Its actually has three separate races; a 50 miler, a 50k, and a 20 mile fun run. I had gone into it thinking I would do the fun run, but I was feeling so good at the turnaround point that I decided to just keep going and run the 50k instead. Why not, right? The course starts at about 4500 and (the 50k) tops out at around 8500. I had been training on hills and spent the night before above 8000, so I was feeling pretty good all the way to the top, but the relentless pounding on my knees began to take its toll on the downhill. I had been running more or less alone from about mile 20 to mile 25. Its a beautiful course, but I was totally inside my head. The pain in my knees just wouldnt go away. Though I fast-hiked a couple of the steepest parts on the way up, I had managed to run most of the course. But now, on the easy part, I was thinking hard about whether it would be ok to walk. And I did. Id walk for a bit until my knees felt like they could handle a bit more. Than Id run until it felt like all the cartilage in my knee had worn away and my kneecap was scraping my femur. Then Id walk.
It went on like this for a while, and I spent longer than I normally would at the next aid station. Another runner came jogging in, and we struck up a conversation. He was, apparently, having a much easier time of this than I was. We started off together and had a really enjoyable talk. This many years later, I couldnt tell you what it was we discussed, but I remember very clearly that my knee pain never came back. The last seven miles of the race were a heck of a lot easier than the previous seven, and we crossed the finish line together with smiles on our faces.
So what happened? The pain I felt was entirely real. Striking up a conversation didnt magically regenerate my cartilage or lubricate my bones. Why did my beleaguered knees suddenly stop bothering me? The answer is focus. Focusing on that pain gave it power. It was powerful enough to induce me to stop running, and I was in very real danger of not finishing at all. I had only decided to run the 50k on a whim, after all. But it only took a slight distraction to make the pain entirely disappear. I suspect that the physical phenomena occurring at the site of my pain werent any different after I stopped paying attention to them. But the effect was staggering. The pain was an illusion.
Now listen, Im not a pain management specialist, and I dont wish to devalue the suffering of those afflicted with chronic (and very real) pain. When I put my hand on the burner of a stove, it hurts. Im not suggesting that pain doesnt exist. But for most of us, the majority of the pain we feel in life is psychic and not physical. And in this realm especially, the effect that pain has on our life is a choice. The world is as it is. In my previous job, I commuted an hour and a half each way to get to work. Some days, all I could think about was everything I was missing out on at home and how my life was slipping away, and that was really painful. But on others I spent the drive awed by the beauty of the sunset, losing myself in the music I listened to, or catching up with old friends on the phone. Focusing on the opportunities the drive offered rather than those it cut off made the experience one that I genuinely missed when I switched jobs to something closer to home.
Its true that in our psychic life, just as in our physical life, we all experience some very real pain. Much of that is beyond our ability to control. But we do control our focus. Giving pain power over ourselves by allowing it to consume our focus is a choice. Though its often difficult, and at first requires some serious discipline, making the choice to acknowledge our pain, and then move on, is the difference between life and death. A life consumed by pain is no life at all. But, given that we will all experience some degree of pain in our lives, choosing to coexist with pain without allowing it to blind us to the beauty of life and the world around us is a choice that keeps us alive. Choose life.
