At the point when life becomes so tough and it suddenly feels like everything is crashing down, we find ourselves imagining about a world with no stress or pain. It might sound like a world that exist only in our imaginations but at some point in time, we all find ourselves fantasizing about such a world. The mere thought of its existence gives us hope and relief from the current situation we might be experiencing.
I once heard a very funny story from an addict in a movie called euphoria. She said, whenever she find herself taking any form of substances just to cope with whatever she is dealing with, for just 20 secs the world suddenly slows down, the noise fades and everything suddenly feels so peaceful. For just that 20 secs of peace, she doesn't mind taking any hard drugs just to get her there.
Looking at the world we currently live in, what it consist of, the pain, stress, challenges, obstacles. We have find ways to convince ourselves that these things definitely plays their part in making us stronger, we all develop some kind of coping mechanism along the line just to cope with the world we have always known. Our mind is aware of one thing, the pain and struggle is not going anywhere, so instead of just whining about it, we chose to develop high tolerance for it.
By doing that we call it growth because we are now capable of taking whatever lives throws at us, the pain has finally transformed us but does it not sound weird? I'm quite aware of the fact that, in life there is no shortage of pain and struggle but that is because it is what I have always known the world to be but what if the world was something else. A place where pain does not exist, a place I could feel relaxed and stress free, will that make me weak or deprive me of the strength I would have gotten from constant exposure to struggles our world have to offer?
This is a defective thinking, just because all we have always known is pain and struggle, it doesn't mean that it is the only source of growth there is. Just what if there is a world where there is no hunger, injustice, a fair world, I strongly believe there will surely be something to derive strength from. Just because the world we live in has constantly fed us all kind of pain, that doesn't mean that it is all life could offer, it could be better. We were taught to cope with it because we don't have any other choice, it is either we accept the world as it is and find a way to cope with it or we bury ourselves in self-pity.
I'm not trying to sound religious but the mere thought of a perfect world for a Christian like me definitely sounds like heaven, now imagine thinking that such a place would make us weak or prevent us from growing. I guess it is true after all, everything we humans are exposed to reshapes our reality and perspective of the world we live in. So if we were living in this perfect world in the first place and we have never been exposed to the kind of world we live in now, we would have found something else I derive growth from.
So when people speak of a world filled with pain, hunger, struggle, obstacles - we would think of it as something impossible because we would have never lived it, so it would be hard to imagine. Despite not living in it, we would grow in grace, in peace just like the way we have grown in pain and in struggles. Was the world never meant to be perfect in the first place? well, we only find ourselves saying things like this because we have never experienced a perfect world, until we do, we would never know better.
This write-up was inspired by weekly featured content titled The perfect world in hive learners community.
Cover image - 𝖣𝖾𝗌𝗂𝗀𝗇𝖾𝖽 𝗎𝗌𝗂𝗇𝗀 𝖼𝖺𝗇𝗏𝖺
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