The Importance of Pain | Ep.13

This week we look at inconsiderate behaviour, then get to the heart of why pain matters and how to use it. Practical stories, the beta region paradox, training analogies, and scripture show how discomfort can build endurance, character, and hope.

• inconsiderate dog owners and social courtesy
• pivot from pet peeves to pain as signal
• using hurtful feedback to change habits
• the beta region paradox and getting unstuck
• training stress, recovery and resilience
• dangers of overprotection and fragility
• boredom and small tactics to regain focus
• honest feedback, shame versus condemnation
• scripture on suffering, pruning and purpose
• closing reflections and simple takeaways

Christ is King, Jesus loves you, and He's coming back soon

Transcript

Rant On Inconsiderate Behaviour

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to episode 13 of Ministry of Man. And I'm your host, Isaac Anthony Turner. And can I just say this week I've observed I think some of the most inconsiderate people in it's it's I've been made aware that common courtesy isn't common at all. Because okay, this is the story, right? So I went for a walk with my friend, and we're just like walking through a little walk path in in my little area that I live. And as we're walking, a guy with a dog on a lead was walking towards us, and we kind of, oh nice dog. And then the dog kind of comes over and sniffs my friend's leg. And then as the they walked away, my friend was like, Okay, wow, that's a lot of slobber now all over my leg. Would have been nice to know that before like letting the dog come up and and sniff me and lick me or whatever. And it's like, yeah, like if you so obviously my friend didn't know that this was a slobbery dog, but the dog owner would know that it was a slobbery dog. And if that's the case, why would you just let it go over and slobber all over a random stranger as if we think that's cute in the way that the own owner would think it's cute? Like it's annoying that people think that they're that other people are gonna think their dog is as cute as they think it is. Like it's just never been the case in the history of ever. Like you're always gonna think your dog is uh is cuter than everyone else, especially when it isn't like an objectively cute dog and it's just like a random, like oh, I don't know, just like a I don't know, an angry-looking dog or something. It's not necessarily a uh a typical cute dog. And I'm like, it just bothered me because that's not the first time that something like that has happened. Like I remember being at someone's house and I'm sitting on their couch and they're they had a massive dog, and it just sort of came over, and I was like, oh hi, dog, or whatever. You know, went to give a dog a pat on the head, and then the dog kind of like lent its uh its jaw on my shoulder, and then I just gave him a little pat and then he kind of walked away. And as he walked away, I realized that there was now half a liter of slobber and drool all over my shirt. I'm like, why didn't you warn me? Like the person that owned the dog, why didn't you just mention, hey, just so you know, that's a it's a my dog slobers a lot, and you're gonna get drool all over your your shirt, and uh, and maybe don't let him do that, and just give me a heads up. Like, it just seems to be such an inconsiderate thing. I don't know if it's just like a stupidity thing, or if it's just a selfishness thing, and it's just someone's just like they don't actually consider other people and what they might think or feel, or um, how something might interact with someone that's not you, or they um they're just stupid and they don't realize that they're not the only person in the world, or that someone might not like something like that, and also you know, in addition to the dog being like okay, this is a common one where you go to someone's house and the the dog there just starts jumping up on you, and the the owner's like, Oh, get down, come on, Fido, get down, get down, and the dog isn't listening, and they keep jumping up on you, and you're just like awkwardly just kind of moving away and being like, um, and then all of a sudden you're you're covered, absolutely covered in probably drool, if not all the hair that they happen to molt, and you just turn into a walking carpet. And like the dog, but the point is the dog isn't listening, they're not listening to your get down. So, like, what you would do is go over and grab the dog and maybe put him in a different room where he doesn't continuously come and jump up on you every two and a half seconds. So it's like, like, what are you doing? Why are you doing this? Why are you letting like, and then you look like a bad guy if you like keep pushing the dog away? There's been so many times where I'm like, can you just like move your dog to another room? Because he hasn't stopped either licking me or jumping on me in the 20 minutes that I've been here. And it's obviously not going to stop because every attempt that you've made to say it verbally isn't working. So move him into another room. I swear, dog owners make it so hard for me to be a dog person. I've loved dogs like my whole life, and it wasn't until running into bad dog owners that like they're putting me off dogs now. It's really frustrating because I do like dogs. But now I feel like I only like little dogs. But it's yeah, I mean, more than anything, I'm just basically saying the person in control of the situation should take control of the situation. I remember being at a birthday party, it was a kid's birthday party, and they just lit the candle on the cake, and the whole family of the kid was standing around the cake. And there was a different kid that was not part of the family that had walked over into the shot uh because they were gonna get a family photo around the cake with the candle there. So there's other kids walked over and they're going, oh, sorry, we're just gonna get a quick photo, just like hop over there for a second. Now that now the everyone at the party is gathered around because they're about to blow the candle out, right? They're gonna get the photo, they're gonna blow the candle out. So everyone at the party is crowded around. The dad of the kid is saying, like called his name once to say, come out of the way. The kid didn't hear, or either did hear and didn't listen, or didn't obey. And as we're all waiting, the dad's just standing there looking at the kid, not saying anything else. And everyone's like trying to say, like the people that are in the photo, like the family in the photo, are saying, Hey, just like walk over there for a minute. You can come back to this after. We're just gonna get a photo. Kid's still not listening, and the dad's just standing there for like, it's like, dude, get your kid. Like, you've got 40 people just standing around waiting for this kid to move. You're the dad. Walk over and get the kid. What kind of mind-numbing, like brain-dead person do you have to be to not realize it's like you're like a stranger? I wasn't gonna go over there and grab the kid to get him out of the photo. Like you have to go and get your own kid. Like it's weird if someone else does it. So, like, how does that not clock to you that it's like the kid's just not listening? So, oh, we're just gonna, we're just gonna just stand and wait. It's gonna stand and and wait and just see, you know, maybe he'll move, maybe he won't, but uh, you know, doesn't really matter. Yeah, it's either incredibly selfish or stupid, and probably both. And um, that's what's been grinding my gears this week. But anyway, aside from all of that, I'm not even talking about any of that today today. Bruh, just do better. Just do better. Dog owners do better. You're annoying. Because dogs, here's the thing dogs can't help it, right? And a little kid, they don't know. So it's like you don't blame them for the thing, you blame the person that would be in control of it, right? So it's the dog owner's fault. If anyone doesn't like dogs, it's the dog owner's fault. That's that's the real enemy. If anyone doesn't like kids, it's the parents' fault. You know? So yeah. Basically, the world is full of inconsiderate people that seem to want to stand in front of the walkway where everyone's gonna walk in. Yeah, have a conversation in the doorway. Great idea. Bro, how about how about let's walk our entire family of six in a in a uh in a direct line, all linking arms, in a Westfield shopping centre so no one can walk around you. And let's all walk really slow. How about we do that? It's just inconsiderate people, man. Anyway, today I'm talking about the importance of pain, and not in a like a sadistic kind of masochist way. So this is the thing that I want to make a real note on from the get-go. Pain has a purpose that is a good purpose that you can utilize to make your life better. So you can either use pain for its designated purpose, or you can ignore it, uh, you can be bitter about it, you can just kind of accept it or whatever. But you can, not only can you, but you should use pain in the sense that pain typically should it should move you in a particular direction. It should move you. The response to pain is that you should obviously move away from the thing that's causing the pain and not just try to remove the pain. So people can often try and just like address, okay, I'm in pain, I want to, I want to get rid of this pain, rather than allowing the pain to move you and move you in a different place in your life. So, as an example, let's say this if you touch a hot stove, you move away from it because you're like, that's hot. So that's that's one level of moving away from pain or experiencing pain. So that there's the the flow-on effect from that is this. You can either be like, oh, I don't go near stoves anymore because I got burnt from it once and I don't want to get burnt again. That's one way of learning, I suppose, from pain and moving away from pain. Or you can say, I need to set my life up in which I am prepared for the fact that a stovetop might be hot. So that would include maybe testing it or being more wise around those environments, maybe wearing what are those, like oven mitts or something. Maybe um a better example, or just another example. That's one example. So a really, really good example of the particular type of pain that I'm in, because obviously, like physical pain is one thing, like having an accident or getting a cut or a hurt or whatever. That's kind of not really the level of pain I want to address today. So a friend of mine came to me not long ago and asked me to help them to set up a program to work on at the gym. Now, the reason that they came and asked is because someone had made a comment to them that was very upsetting, and as a result of that upsetting comment, they wanted to make a change in their life. Okay. So what they've done is they've used this pain that they felt from the comment, and it is moved their life towards a way to live that no longer will experience that type of pain. So they're addressing the issue rather than blaming the outside world. Because another response to that kind of thing could just be to ignore it or to blame other people and to say things like, you know, oh, that was really mean what they said, how dare they say that, and then like not change anything in their own life. So in that case, they're not allowing the pain to move them, then they're negating it, they're reflecting it, they're just ignoring it basically for all intents and purposes. So, but the the proper response is to do what they did, is to say, okay, that hurt. So uh I am going to address it myself, and I'm going to allow it to move me to a place where I won't experience that pain anymore. So you learn from pain and you let it change you. That's the core of what I want to talk about. So you what you want to do is uh is let it kind of catapult you towards a life that doesn't run into the same situations. So Chris Williamson popularized uh a paradox called the beta region paradox. And basically what it is is it says that it's almost better for you to be in a worse situation because if you're in a really, really bad situation, you're more likely to move out of it quicker. Whereas if it's kind of in a bad situation, but it's not that bad, you might be more inclined to stay in there in that situation for longer. So an example might be if you've got a job and it's not that bad, you know, the the perks are kind of good, the the money's not great, but you know, your colleagues aren't too bad. You you don't really like your manager, and it's quite a long way to drive. And you you ultimately don't like it, but there's a couple of things that are okay about it, even though you don't like it, it isn't quite bad enough for you to really do anything about it. But if you work a job that is absolute hell and it's awful, you wouldn't last two weeks in it. You would have you would look at it and you would say, Okay, this is so bad, I need to get out of this immediately. So in that scenario, it's better that you had the worst job. So another example is let's say you you had to go somewhere, and if it was only, let's say, one kilometer away, you would walk. If it was two kilometers away, you would drive. In a weird paradoxical kind of way, it's faster for you to go the two kilometers than it is for you to go less distance in the one kilometer. Because the one kilometer you're gonna walk, it's gonna take a while, but you're gonna go the two kilometers in the car, so it's gonna be actually better, even though you're going a longer way and you're gonna get there more, you're gonna get there quicker. So that's kind of what it is. It's it's a similar sense of allowing a bad situation to move you away from it. That's the purpose of pain. And that's why it's kind of important is uh to to it's why it's important to use it in the right way and to allow that pain to push you in the right direction. So this is how you this is how you grow as a person. So you act, you can actually grow and learn from pain as well. So an example might be when people go to the gym, the way that they get stronger and their muscles get bigger is they're actually tearing their muscle. So when someone's going to the gym and they get really sore the next day, they're sore because the muscle has torn. So they're they're in pain. And that pain is actually a good thing because they're growing from it and they're gonna be stronger as a result. And it's uh it's almost like a principle of life. So the opposite to that might be you go to the gym and you go, no, it's really painful, so I'm not gonna go anymore. I'm not gonna go because it hurts a lot. And so I don't want to be in pain, so I don't go to the gym. But without realizing, like, no, it's the pain itself that is the good thing. So again, not in like a psychotic way, like the there's reward for that particular pain, and it's that you are gonna be able to lift up heavier things. So when you experience hard things in life, the response shouldn't be to try to avoid that at all costs. It's like, cause because pain's gonna come at some point. You can't just walk through life and not experience pain or hardship in it, in like it's gonna come. So you want to know that you're prepared for it and that you've and in the times that you might not be prepared to react to it the right way. Because you will end up being better equipped and stronger to be able to deal with those things in the future. So this is why it's important to do hard things. So when you avoid doing anything difficult, you rob yourself of actually building strength and tolerance that equips you to be able to handle painful things and difficult things in the future. So let's say you're a parent, right? And you have a child, and all you do for their whole life, you protect them from every single hard thing and every single painful thing that might cross their path. And then they get to the point where they turn 18 and maybe they want to move out. What do you think that person is going to be like when they move out? Like, if if they've never experienced hardship and they've never experienced pain or disappointment or rejection or whatever the thing is, they've never experienced any kind of pain or hardship. That is going to be the most fragile human being imaginable. They're not going to be equipped to be able to live in the world. Like, this is an unforgiving world. I was talking to a friend the other day who was talking about moving to moving to Sydney from the Gold Coast. And we're talking about how, like, when you move away, like the world doesn't care whether you're ready or not. Like, bills are gonna keep coming in, your car could break down, there could be, you know, I don't know, you you could lose your job or whatever. Like, no one, the world doesn't have compassion for like, oh, but I just moved out and now I'm like, I'm fresh, I'm all new at this. Like, maybe just like sit, can you send me the bill in like a couple of months' time? It's like obviously there's like hardship things where you can go on payment plans and all that kind of thing. But ultimately, there's a lot of things that don't have that option. Like your car breaking down, for example. You can't just go to a mechanic and be like, hey, I really need my car though, because I I've got a job and um without it, I'm not gonna be able to get to work. Like the mechanic's gonna be like, okay, well then come. Like, what do you want us to do about it? Like, we're not gonna do it for free. So you have to be like mentally prepared to be able to deal with these things without completely breaking down. Like, there is nothing good about overprotective parents, let's say. Like, I I've got a few friends that are teachers, and they often talk about kids these days that are in high school, that they're first of all, they've all got some sort of mental health issue, and then half of them uh have got like severe mental health problems where that they are going to therapy and they're talking about wanting to take their own lives, and they're like 14 and 15. Now, granted, there are some really tragic stories of uh abuse and things in in houses, and I'm not talking about that because obviously that's tragic, and you've got to, you get your heart should go out to anyone that's in an abusive family or domestic abuse relationship with their, especially with their parents or whoever's their guardian. But a lot of these kids aren't in that situation, and they're having these issues that they're wanting to take their own lives for, and it's just like they've just gone through a breakup. And it's like everyone, like everyone has gone through a breakup or had rejection. They don't want to take like basically the kids of today have no like mental fortitude, and the littlest things will just break them. I saw a kid that was working behind the desk, and uh some guy was pressing him pretty, pretty hard. It seemed like he was putting A lot of pressure on this young guy, uh, because something went wrong at a hotel, maybe. But the kid had a full-on breakdown where he started smashing his head against the computer and then pretty much just had a panic attack. And it's like, dude, like we obviously don't know the full story of maybe, you know, there was other things going on. But there are a lot of people that really do have those kinds of mental breakdowns for things that, you know, a hundred years ago, what no one would have battered an eye. Like the mental strength of the youth today, they've just been like pampered and comforted and protected so much, they've spent their whole lives wrapped in bubble wrap that when they come into a problem in the real world, they can't handle it and they break down, or they go to a therapist or to a psychologist or a psychiatrist and just get drugged up for it. And so they're walking around, not even really living with their proper emotions. There's mood stabilizers and antidepressants and all these things. It's like you just needed to like understand how life works a little bit better and actually experience some pain and then grow from the pain and then get the tools used to then be able to overcome it next time. That's kind of the whole point. The worst, I think, thing that the liberal kind of left ideology has done is instead of teaching people how to deal with hardship and deal with pain yourself, they want everyone else around you to change and accommodate so then you don't have to deal with it. So they'll say, like, oh, that's triggering to me. Therefore, you have to change your behavior because I can't handle it. So, what do you think is easier? That you change yourself and grow stronger so that you're able to withstand whatever happens in the world, or change the behavior of everyone else in the world so that they don't bother you and that their behavior doesn't bother you. It's like it that to me is the most arrogant, prideful, self-centered ideology and behavior I can possibly imagine. Like the fact that you think that everyone else in the world has to change their behavior just because you, as one person, don't like something, rather than just being able to deal with it. Like, oh, that triggered you? Yeah. Okay. Well, okay, figure it out then. Figure out what to do about that. Like, the idea that you can get everyone to just babysit you and hold your hand through life is just the most unrealistic fairy tale I've ever heard. It's crazy, man. But it's so much worse for the people that try to like overprotect instead of actually giving someone the tools. Like, it it it isn't it isn't actually loving and caring to, as they think that it is, to try and shelter everyone. Because like, what okay, let me put it this way. What would you rather? Would you rather be a person that relies on everyone else around you to keep you safe or have the ability to be safe through your own means? What do you think is the better option in that? What do you think is the better thing to teach people? Like it's obviously, it's obviously the latter. Like, I shouldn't even have to explain that. But it's like, yeah. And like the thing is, you can't learn to deal with those things like that you've never experienced. So if you've never gone through the experience of feeling what it's like, and then like not having people come and hold your hand and like pat you on the head and tuck you in at nine, you have to be able to like learn the pain and learn how to deal with it. Like, you can't, if you're like one of the things that I like to do to get motivated is if I if I find that I'm like doom scrolling a little bit, or if I'm like, oh, I can't be bothered doing what I need to do, I'll sit on the end of my bed and I'll look at the wall until I'm so bored that literally anything would be better than that. And then I get up and I do some work. So it takes like two minutes, by the way, to do that. And then I'm motivated to work. So, like as soon as you try and just like mask and band-aid over pain and not actually allow yourself to sit in it, that's what moves you away. When I was like 26 or 27, I was in probably the worst place mentally. I was seeing a psychologist and he he actually did put me on antidepressants or whatever, and you know, life sucked. But the reason that I went to see the psychologist and and started that process was because I was in so much pain that I was like, this is the only option. Like, I have to get out of this pain because I can't sit here in this. What am I gonna do? Sit here in pain forever? Like, I didn't used to be in pain, now I am, and so I'm like, okay, well, like I need to address this now. And so what ended up happening was he gave me the tools that I needed, and then I came out of it, and now I'm okay. And so that was like, you know, eight years ago or seven years ago, however long. And after three months, I never went back because I got I got the tools. So, but I never would have sought the tools out if everyone was just like treating me differently and giving me like giving me a pass for like maybe not doing so well at work, or um, if I didn't have people maybe mention my weight gain, or maybe mention how bad I was looking. Like, I honestly think like bringing back shame is like a a good thing. Like, and I don't mean like can condemnation, but I mean like just mentioning like dude, like you are fat now. Like, I gained 15 kilos in six months. That should be concerning. Like, stopped going to the gym and in so no exercise, and in six months I put on 15 kilos. Like, that it that should be cause for concern, and it should be like people shouldn't be like, oh, you know, he's just going through a hard time. Like, be worried about me enough to say, dude, like this is bad. Insult me. And so I can feel the pain of that and actually realize, like, yeah, right, okay, maybe I should make a change in my life. That's that's good, that would be a good friend. So instead of running away from pain, you have to use it to become more powerful than you can ever imagine, and then you can take over the world, and no one can ever stop you. And then you can run the world. So you've what I'm basically trying to say is that if you want to rule the world, you have to experience pain first, and then you have to go into your villain arc, and then you have to uh um get like a cave or something and stew away for a while and then come out even more powerful, and then um, and then everyone that ever did you wrong, you're gonna be strong enough to seek revenge. So, all of this is all I'm just talking about revenge. It's all you're gonna be a super villain after this advice. That's what I'm trying to say. The idea of supervillains is so funny because it's like how about like just like you know, move on, um like stewing about old enemies or something. It's like like some people like uh in their 30s and they're like, Yeah, this kid like messed with me when he was seven. It was like, you bro, you gotta move on, like get over it. I remember like there was this guy on this on this website, he was like uh he posted a thing on a forum website, and he was like, guys, what do I do? Like, I've been hung up on this, uh, met this girl, and you know, we dated for a little bit, like we dated for like some years, it's been like 10 years, and like I still can't get over it. What do I do? And uh, and the top comment was just like it just said move on. It's like, yeah, dude. Like, how are you like figure it out, man? Like, go and meet another person, like don't allow yourself to just dwell on thoughts forever. Like, yeah, move on, man. Just drop it, like just accept it. They're gone. Anyway, this is what the Bible says. The Bible says in James 1, verse 2 to 3. That's James chapter 1, 2 to 3. And it says, Counter all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces patience. So it's saying he's saying count all joy when you meet various kinds of trials. Like trials are like they're hardships, they're difficulties, things to overcome. And he's saying, count all joy in that in the in the in the biblical sense, he's saying because it's uh it's a testing of your faith, which produces patience. So he's saying that there's there's fruit that come out of it. There's you you gain something from it. It's not just, it's not the pain isn't in vain. Romans 5, 3 and 4 says, not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope. So again, like we rejoice in our sufferings, not for the sake of the suffering itself, but what the suffering produces. It's it's we don't uh get all down and woe with me because of the suffering. It's like, oh, why is it this happening to me? It's like, no, you're looking at pain and suffering completely wrong. Like, there's obviously different levels to it. I'm not talking about things like a loved one passing away, or even though if that does happen, you can console and comfort others that have gone through it because it's really hard to receive comfort from someone that hasn't experienced a similar thing, by the way. And people that people would know that because like something that people are struggling with, or people that people struggle with is when people don't know what they're experiencing, being like trying to give, oh, you know, I went through this. It's like imagine if you had like, let's say you're a parent and you had a child pass away, and someone goes, Yeah, like I know it, that's like it must be so sad. I remember when my pet died or something, and I was really sad about that. They're like, that's you're not gonna be able to console me with those words. Like, you don't know what it's like. So there is even in that, there is some sense of value in the person that you're able to reproduce comfort for other people. But more so to the point is that uh what I'm trying to say is that we know that suffering produces patience or endurance, and that produces character, which is one of the most important things to develop. And character produces hope. And hope it says, Hope does not put us to shame because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. Come on now. And the last verse I want to say, and this is one of my favorite pieces of scripture in the entire Bible. I love this so much. Listen to this. This is Judges 3, verses 1 and 2, and it says, Now these are the nations that the Lord left to test Israel by them, that is, all in Israel who had not experienced all the wars in Canaan. It was only in order that the generations of the people of Israel might know war, to teach war to those who had not known it before. And then it goes on and it lists some nations that the Lord left on purpose. So there was actually nations that were surrounding the Old Testament Israelites that God had left for the purpose of the current new generation Israelites so that they might know war and be able to, so they wouldn't be soft, that they'd be able to experience war, because it says for those that had not known it before. Like tests and trials and struggles are there for us to grow. You can't lose. You can't lose. If you understand the importance of pain, you cannot lose because you know that you're going to be stronger as a result of the pain. Come on now. Listen to me now. You can't lose in this life. It's either you win or you grow. So you're either winning or you're growing. You're either winning or you're growing. It's like there's this verse in the Bible is actually kind of there's actually like another one that's it's it's kind of funny in one sense. So Jesus says in the New Testament, he goes, Whoever bears good fruit, you'll be pruned, right? And if you don't bear good fruit, you get cut off from the tree altogether, right? So either way, you're getting cut. Like pruning is still things getting cut off and away from you. Like it's a painful process, you're getting clipped. I mean, it's a lot better than just getting cut off from the whole tree and getting cast into the fire, mind you. Uh like pruning is never a nice feeling. And so it does it kind of doesn't matter what you do, you're gonna experience pain, okay? That is coming, that is a guarantee. You're gonna experience pain. And so there should be some solace though in the in the understanding and the knowing that if you are experiencing pain, it's not for naught. Like it isn't just it isn't gonna be wasted. There is gonna be some some fruit that is gonna come from it. So, I mean, obviously, in in terms of pruning, you do that so more fruit can grow. Uh, so you you just want to be hoping that you're you're the pruning one and that you are bearing good fruit, that you're not you're not getting cut off and cast into the fire. Um so yeah, so look out for that. Um, anyway, I will wrap it up there. Thanks again for listening, and uh I'll be with you. And just be considerate. That's the other thing. Um, so like to recap, so um be considerate, turn into a super villain and like, subscribe, share this podcast, whatever, do all that stuff. Um, but all of that is trash and garbage because of these three things Christ is King, Jesus loves you, and it's coming back soon. Thanks for listening, peace.