An author, John Powell once said, “Pain is a teacher from whom we can learn.”
My name is Paul and this is my story of the lessons that Pain gives. Ever since birth, I have never met nor laid eyes upon my father and at the age of two, my mother dropped me off at an orphanage after deciding that she couldn’t take care of me anymore.
The day she left me in front of the orphanage gate is still clear in my mind. It was a cold rainy night and I remember the fear within me as I sat curled up, cold and hoped that my mother would return to get me. She never did and all through out my childhood years, I suffered the pain of rejection, being unwanted and never getting to say goodbye to my mother.
The next morning, a woman from the orphanage found me, trembling and sick from staying all night in the rain. She quickly carried my small feverish body into the orphanage sick room where a doctor was called to treat me.
A few days after I recovered, I was brought into a room full of boys. It was then I realized that my mother was no longer coming back to get me and I was on my own.
Life in the orphanage was difficult. I was treated badly and by the age of four, I already knew how to do a lot of things like washing and hanging clothes. Everyone in the orphanage lived in poverty and every day it was a race and a challenge to find clothing and food to eat. Basically, everyone’s motto in the orphanage was “First come, First Serve”. Usually the bigger bullies got the “best” of everything whilst the others including me got the “worst.” We had to get our clothes from the bags that people donated and we even had to wear the left over dresses and skirts because we were too late to find suitable clothes for ourselves.
As I lived day by day at the orphanage, I felt that life was not fair. Sometimes I would catch a glimpse outside the gate of the rich kids walking pass by with good expensive clothes and I couldn’t help feeling jealous of them. I was depressed and hurt by all the suffering that I have to go through.
Until one day, I came across a saying by John Powell about pain scribbled by someone across the wall. At that moment, I kept on thinking about those words and asked myself a lot of questions. I was determined to find the answer and started to strive for success. I laid goals for my life and worked towards them.
In school, even though I was being made fun of and bullied, I was determined to change my life.
As life went on, I kept the words of John Powell in my mind and hoped that one day I would be able to find the answers to my questions. As years went by, I still had not found the answers and the pain was still living inside me. I lived through my teenage years where problems seemed to get bigger. During that time, I felt that my life was in a dark, black hole and I was trying my best to get out of it.
However, I changed my perspective when I got a scholarship to further my studies.
Today I am a doctor and have found all the answers to my questions about pain. Yes, indeed pain is a teacher who taught me, life’s lessons, of courage, determination, independence and everything that a human has to learn. Even today, as a successful person, I still have to go through a lot of problems but I hold on as I know that I have a brilliant “teacher” beside me. Yes, indeed, pain is a teacher whom we can learn from so much
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