Hello, everyone.
I welcome you to my blog. We now live in a world where everyone carries pain, and sometimes I feel like we are in a competition for who carries the most pain or who suffers the most pain. When you overhear some people's conversations, it just describes it better. Like the other day, I was at a bar and overheard customers talking, and it felt like both parties were trying to win a trophy for who lost the most. The first guy said he lost his dad, and his cocoa farm was attacked by a black pod. Nobody consoled him; rather, everyone started talking about their own losses and his own fading without anyone acting like his pain counted.
That is what happens when you deal with people who cannot set their pain aside. Console you, cheer you up, and help you find the courage to keep going rather than make it look like it is a competition and the one with the saddest story or the most pain wins. It is really saddening to see how the guy was shut while the others poured out their own pain. I can imagine how he felt on the inside, for someone to pour out their pains like that and then it was made to look like it did not count. I am sure so many thoughts ran through his mind.
To help stop people from feeling how he felt is exactly why a lot of us find it difficult to open up; rather, we absorb the pain of others, add it to ours, and somehow still find a way to cheer them up, encourage them, and make them feel comfortable around us no matter what the pain might be. Many people cannot open up for the fear of being judged or for the fear of people seeing them differently after they open up; some don't open up because they fear their little struggle will be out on the streets, and some just understand that not everyone is supposed to know what goes on in their life, and then they keep their stories and their pain to themselves.
Those with the biggest smile and the loudest laughter are the ones with the biggest wound and the hardest battle; somehow they have been able to mask their pain for so many reasons and have been able to master it so they don't bring others discomfort. There are people who are going through the worst but still give you listening ears, find a way to make you smile, make you happy, and make you forget your battles while their own battle is eating them up. From one individual to another, their reason for masking their pain varies; some have tried opening up, and it did not go well, and they vowed to never do it again, while some don't even want to risk it at all, and then there are some who just don't know how to do so.
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