I Guess I Haven't Learned That Yet: Discovering New Ways of Living When the Old Ways Stop Working

by Shauna Niequist

Pain is pain and there’s no use comparing—in particular, there’s no use saying what you’ve been through isn’t bad enough. There’s no rating system, no Olympics of suffering. Dark is dark, period, but one way we distract ourselves from our own pain is by getting really concerned with everyone else’s pain. You become like a traffic cop for other people’s journeys—Oh, you think that’s bad? Oh, please, it’s barely dark where you are.

Did you all just wake up and feel normal and at peace with your body? Did any of you feel at war, like a foreigner on foreign soil, like an enemy?

When you’re old, you realize that most of the things you’re worried about are actually going to happen, whether you worry about them or not.

I hope I am increasingly outraged at injustice in any form, but less offended or horrified when things don’t go my way.