Two Types Of Pain You’re Going To Experience

Avoiding pain was my default mode for a decade or two. I avoided pain like it was my job. I steered clear of situations and relationships that might’ve been painful, and I tried to keep my emotional investment at a minimum.

Obviously, this was a disaster.

Not only is it impossible to completely avoid pain, avoiding pain means avoiding life.

One of my biggest challenges as an adult has been realizing that not all pain is created equal. So, I created two terms that have helped me healthily process and respond to different types of pain in my life:

Stove Pain vs. Bicycle Pain

The difference between stove pain and bicycle pain is one helps me know when to back away and the other when to lean in.

Stove pain is simply what happens when we touch a hot stove — it hurts, but hopefully we learn to stay away from this source of pain in the future. This is healthy. This is how we stay alive — stove pain alerts us to dangers in the world and encourages us to avoid them. We experience stove pain when we get speeding tickets. We experience stove pain when the person we knew was trouble breaks our heart.

Stove pain is what teaches us that moderation is better than excess. Stove pain is what teaches us to prepare differently for the next test or interview or presentation. Stove pain teaches us that there are some things in life worth avoiding.

But not all pain is stove pain.

Not all pain teaches avoidance.

How tragic would it have been if the first time you fell off your bicycle you interpreted your scraped knees and elbows as stove pain? You would’ve kept your bicycle in the garage or sold it to a neighbor kid, and you never would’ve learned to ride. You would’ve missed out on the adventure and freedom that belong to a kid on a bike. You would’ve been safe in your driveway with your Etch-A-Sketch (it has rounded corners, which are especially safe), but meanwhile, life would’ve passed you by.

The message of bicycle pain — that first time you fall off, that first time you fight with your spouse, that first time your boss squashes your idea — isn’t to back away; it’s to lean in.

Bicycle pain is an invitation to push through.

It’s an invitation to get your knees scraped up now and then, and then to keep riding. Bicycle pain says that life, real life, is found in the scuffs and scrapes and scars — bicycle pain says they’re worth it.

There’s nothing on the other side of stove pain — it’s just more pain. Putting your hand back on the stove or leaving it there longer will not make your life more meaningful.

We’ve already said adventure and freedom await us on the other side of bicycle pain.

But that’s not all.

On the other side of bicycle pain, we form scars that give us stories of riding, falling, bleeding, healing, and riding again.

Bicycle pain means we lost our balance, which we all do from time to time. But good stories aren’t about avoiding this type of pain. Good stories are about mustering the courage to face our bicycle pains, find our balance again and ride on.