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Disclaimer: This article does not advocate negativity of any sort. Your mental health is of most importance, so do not follow this advice if you deem it dangerous to your well-being.
This article aims to provide some insight into why seeking out painful information helps in growing our influence on those around us.
Perhaps you’ve heard about negative visualization – the philosophy of seeking out what hurts is not new in the realm of self-improvement. For the purpose of this article, painful information will be used to represent things which we fear knowing. An example of seeking painful information is testing for sexually transmitted diseases after you’ve had unprotected sex with multiple partners.
Painful information has the possibility of being real to us, which is why we shy away from truly knowing if it is. Painful information is the mark your receive for a test you did not study for. It is valid criticism which comes from others that surprises you with the truth it carries.
Surprises Live and Prosper Because We Fear Pain
The fear of seeking painful information is the path towards unpleasant surprises. You will be surprised on your path to learning painful things. However, the pain you feel will not compare to the pain that ignoring painful information leads to. With more knowledge of negative situations as a whole, the act of managing their painful effects gets easier. A habit of avoiding painful information will become a habit of being surprised by bad news. Ignoring painful information reinforces its growth, and encourages delivery of more pain. Seeking out painful information early on helps negate the intensity of surprises later on.
Being on the lookout for information you’d rather not know has its effects on others too. People will recognize your ability to accept painful moments without fearing their effects. You may even become jaded to painful information, and begin to treat it as information of any sort. Being aware of, and looking to discover, painful information is an important step for growth. Those who are most in tune with the information which hurts most are capable in preventing that information from causing others pain. By looking out for painful information and accepting it as a driver for the decisions that you make, you will entice others who fear painful information to gravitate around you. It takes bravery and courage to face painful information head on and look it in the eye. The only way to solve problems using logical analysis is to do just that. Most shy away from painful information, rather than tackle it head on.
Every Iteration Helps to Make the Next One Simpler
The act of always looking for painful information never seizes to give birth to fear. It is always uncomfortable to the same degree, but your ability to withstand discomfort will strengthen along the way. It will become easier to remain analytical and unemotional to painful information. Those who react emotionally will wonder how you do it, but the secret is simply repetition. If you want to become good at handling information which causes pain, then you must force yourself through doing it via constant repetition. Each iteration of your act of learning painful information will become easier to get through. Sooner or later, you will break it down, treat things as problems rather than catastrophes, and meticulously work towards solutions.
The act of going through these painful iterations will force you to perform when others are drowned by pressure. You will be the lifeline that others desperately grasp onto – which is painful information in itself. Practice seeking painful information – not to bring forth more sorrow than you care to feel, but to prevent it. Learning of things which others find difficult to seek out will separate your ability to make decisions from theirs. Allow painful information to fuel your ability to solve life’s toughest problems and become a person who others turn to in the face of knowledge too painful for them to bare alone.