Seb Petersen

Honors Lit

Mr. Smith

November 9th, 2023

Pain makes you stronger

There are two types of people in this world, some that prefer to shrug and cry when life

hits harder than expected, and those that drive themselves to prepare for the next hit. In life pain

is inescapable, whether it's physical or mental, one is bound to face both. Although nobody

enjoys a broken leg, or losing a loved one, pain like this only can make us stronger as we move

on through life because it teaches you physical resilience, mental stability, and prepares you with

knowledge of what actions are beneficial to life and how to treat people right in the future.

I think that when people hear the word pain, it's commonly associated with physical hurt,

but I will start with the type of pain that hurts the most, mental pain. Personally, where I am

thriving in life today is due to the pain I have faced, and it seems these scientists think the same

thing. As I journey through the younger years of my life I could never predict when I would face

adversity. At really younger ages it would be smaller things and I would respond by curling

myself up mentally and slouching myself, whether someone called me a bad name, or a pet died.

As time went on, more serious mental roadblocks caused by adversity stepped on my way, and I

remember ever so clearly the day my grandpa died. It hurt deep down, more than I had ever felt

before, and after crying for a few hours on and off I realized this sparked a choice I felt I had that

was unknown to me previously. I could choose to let this loss drown me, or I can keep my head

up and go after life just like my gramps would have wanted me to. Once I overcame the sadness,
and the pain I was left with a euphoric feeling of mindfulness, success and knew I was stronger

than before my grandpa died. This gave me more confidence and was a step towards becoming a

more resilient person. This small chunk of adversity faced pushed me to the task of

improvement, with benefits of mental strength that help anyone as they go on with life. Today,

looking back on these moments allows me to feel a sense of pride in myself for the strength I

have gained from low points just like the one I described. Therefore pain most certainly benefits

oneself to improve and become stronger. In addition to my experience, pain makes you stronger

by teaching gratitude. It's seen that in times of adversity, learning to be grateful for the positives

still given is a person's strongest adaptation to pain. The world has seen many heroes who have

been in countless moments of deep pain and sorrow, but the ones today who stand to fame tend

to demonstrate this level of gratitude within pain. Anne Frank for example, was a young jewish

girl at the time during the holocaust who hid for 2 years from nazi forces. During this time she

wrote a lot and her writings were found and made famous today. In these writings she talked

about hopeful ideas that preach gratitude in times of roughness, “Think of all the beauty still left

around you and be happy….I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are really good at

heart.”-(Frank 244). She kept this gratitude in her writings to feel her resiliency, and unknown to

her, for the world to see her resiliency as well. This is a clear demonstration of the pain she

faced, turning her into more of a strong and resilient figure to the world and to herself. Its one

example of many, Helen Keller was also a person in history to demonstrate this idea as she faced

adversity from birth. The mental battle, the hardest pain inevitably faced, and gives you a choice

to make. To look at adversity with fear, or to fight back for your own strength.

A scraped knee, broken leg, or bruise, all physical pain. The most obvious pain as it is

seen to the eye. The great thing about physical pain is it works specifically on your mental
toughness, to prepare you further in life to overcome more adversity, whether physical or mental.

There are two types, one is of injury and the other is of temporary pain from things like lifting

weights, and they both make you stronger in different ways. After researching through public

online platforms on this topic, it came to my attention that the majority agreed. One man said it

plainly: “All is in the mind. If you're determined to accept the pain, you can bear the pain, and

thus you become stronger.”-(Parapatla). Feeling physical pain, and being able to endure it trains

your brain to operate in moments of pain. Normally, pain reduces focus, startles breathing, and

increases heart rate. If you can stay calm through pain you are improving your mental toughness,

making you stronger for more fight or flight situations in the future. On the flip side, there are

pains we put on ourselves physically on purpose. These are called temporary pains, pains the

literally make your body regrow in a stronger form than before. Assess reality for a second, if

one gets covid 2 times, their body rebuilds itself stronger to become immune eventually, covid is

the temporary pain. Our body naturally does this to protect ourselves, but we also do this

manually. The best example I can think of for purposeful temporary pain is lifting weights.

Personally, I lift 6 days a week and reap the benefits. Lifting itself tears down your muscle, it

hurts as you lift and after you lift. But as you eat, sleep, and hydrate they rebuild themselves

bigger and stronger. By repeating this process you can grow extremely large and strong. The pain

felt during lifting is temporary, so by training your mind to endure it, your helping yourself gain

strength, because the harder you go, the more reps you take, and the more you fail, the stronger

you will grow. The pain during these lifts trains your body and your mind to grow stronger. They

work with each other as well, the more pain your brain can handle, the more reps you can do. A

person who can tear themselves down and feel pain everyday is a strong person, and each one of

these people does it for the same reason. To become stronger. I stay motivated because I feel the
pain as a sense of therapy knowing that it brings improvement in the long run. I also can take out

my anger in this way which makes the pain have a more purposeful feel. I can always feel the

breaking point between dropping the weight and going for the last, slow, painful rep. I’ve grown

to do it every time because I know the world of difference that small pain will bring to my

strength in moments forward. Strength can be built in the mind and the body through temporary

pain, and injury. Both require a person to train their brains to keep going, in order for their bodies

to be accustomed to the benefits.

Some say they are happier when not faced with pain, or that pain gets in their way of

doing things they need to do. They believe that pain is nothing to be wished upon someone due

to its uncomfort and inconvenience. These ideas make sense, until looking deeper into it. Life is

full of endless things, and to never experience pain would just make life blander. On top of that,

pain is inevitable, so letting it get to you and tear you down leads you into a confined fixed

mindset because you have simply accepted the fate given to you. Obviously, breaking a leg is no

benefit in the world of sports and everyday life. But, being resilient and able to pick yourself up

from the adversity you faced, and push forward, changes the way your brain operates. You can

wire yourself to become a winner, an achiever and someone who fights for success even when

adversity throws roadblocks in your face. The greatest stories you see online and in the news

tend to be about an athlete who was said to never walk again or, the woman who beat cancer and

pursued her dreams. The factor is that these people did not give up, they took their pain, and said

no I will fight for my success and future. Personally I have faced false ,accusations breakups,

loss in family members, loss in valuable items and friends but I still can sit here today and say

grace that those things happened. When I was at my lowest, I hadn a choice. To sag, mope, ask

for sympathy and complain. Or I could smack myself in the face and say wake up, what am I
going to do right now that will make me happy and satisfied, and when I made those choices, I

found parts of myself I never knew existed. Then, once that injury healed up, or once I forgot

about that girl, friend, or family member, I was left with new motivation, ego and mental

stability to stand there unfazed and confident. Pain is what you make it, you decide to be a loser

and you will be one. If you choose to win, you will become unrecognizable and strong with your

mind and body. I also find it interesting how if you practice things a lot it can be painful and

hard, yet in the end the result is nothing but improvement. It goes for everything, pain teaches

lessened that when learned creates masters over time. No teacher, no karate master, and no

football coach was born one, they had been there and done that through the pain and all it had to

offer in order to be where they are today. Therefore, those who make such claims are only full of

fear to face the pain they were given.

Pain strikes through life, physically and mentally. Based on my experiences and others, it

is the way you learn to handle and use the pain that changes your life for the better. Regardless

after all of this info, you could carry on in life with your sorry attitude moping about how hard

things are. Or you could reread this, nail it in your brain and proceed through life stronger,

resilient, and confident. The choice is yours.