Thread by @Mrpossidez

In 2017, I went to sell copies of my first published textbook in a certain tutorial centre. I was jeered out of the podium. Two silly students in the crowd threw sachets of water at me, splashing on my suit. One of my most embarrassing moments. This is a thread.

It is funny how the students hated my guts. There was this eagerness to punish my audacity. They had such strong belief that my book couldn’t be worth it and for months, I had no courage to sell any more copies of the book.

After some time, I got over it. I made decent sales and could pay off my publishing debts. In 2018, I published my second text, for a different audience. I made enough profit to even fund my law school. But this had nothing on the effect, my earlier experience had on me.

We are told that people don’t have to believe in us or in what we do. But when you truly experience people starkly expressing resentment or disbelief in you, it really hurts. And emotional pain has little or no intrinsic value. It doesn’t really make you stronger.

The experience made me realize how scary it is that people don’t want to give you a try, but will associate with you when there’s an improvement to your condition. When you’ve risen through disbelief and doubts, you are likely to become cynical and closed-off.

You may be strong-willed enough to try again but it is really not the pain you’ve experienced that made you stronger. We’re strong because of our natural instinct for self-preservation. Our strength is enabled by guidance, success or the sheer presence of hope.

You will likely survive a heartbreak. We are instinctively wired to preserve ourselves as humans. It’s why we have tipping points. It’s not the pain of a heartbreak that teaches you how to move on; you move on because you must survive. What takes from you, barely empowers.

We instinctively avoid the recurrence of pain because after hurting, pain changes us. Think of us as a plants; they grow finer, healthier with guidance and grooming. Plants that are crushed often, live their whole lives resisting and fighting. They don’t bloom.

So, avoid pain deliberately. Already, some degree of pain is inevitable in life. But avoid foreseeable, avoidable pain. It corrupts our courage and introduces a fear that makes us resolve to see life and people, differently even if we don’t realise it.

Indeed, pain can motivate. It can make you more empathetic. But these values don’t make it desirable or tolerable. It takes much more than it indirectly inspires and in the end, you realize that all that pain can inspire, love, ambition and proper motivation can inspire too.

It is not strength that pain gives. It is wisdom overtime. When we reflect, our past experiences, give us clarity and make us wiser. But only a few people are strong-willed enough to utilize only the positives that pain may inspire. It slowly changes and drowns most.