Pain tolerance

So apparently I had cut myself pretty bad last week in two places. I didn't realize the extent of the wounds till my friend was shocked to see them and I had to put neosporin on them because they hadn't healed fully yet. Both my mom and he were both surprised that I hadn't noticed earlier.

I thought about it, and I realized that pain isn't really an issue anymore. Everything is just relative now, so after experiencing severe nerve pain and autonomic dysreflexia, everything else is simply unnoticeable.

This also got me thinking further into issue. What exactly is pain? Yes, of course it is sensory information sent to our brain from various parts of our body. But is it really an issue? Pain may cause things to be uncomfortable, but do they make them impossible? When physicians and therapists would examine how high I could lift my right arm, they would always ask, "Can it not lift any higher because of pain or because of weakness?" My answer would always be weakness. If it was painful, would I be complaining that I wasn't able to lift it at all?

Now, all this sounds all pseudo-macho. I am aware of that. But my mind is entering weird territories. There are many times in our life when we do not do something because it feels uncomfortable, or it is unknown--not because it is impossible. Why do we do this? If we are capable of taking the plunge and doing something, then why do we let fear hold us back? Eventually, we will look back and think, "Well, relatively, that was simply nothing. I could have easily done that. I should have done that." So, in celebration of this relativity that surrounds the choices that we make, I contend that we should go ahead and not let anything hold us back. Fear, pain, worry--these things are all in the head. Get back into the real and make things work for ourselves.