Pain Triggers

Was talking to a wise friend about our IF journeys and she told me this: "Just remember, everybody has pain triggers."

That's very true, isn't it? Her words remind me to keep things in perspective and that no matter how hard we try not to hurt others, there's bound to be something we say/post that triggers the pain in someone else's heart because we don't know the pain triggers in their lives. 

I think this is made even more acute with sites like FB where people get to share many things with whomever they choose. For example: a travel extensive friend has posted lots and lots of travel photo albums, to which a mother of two young children commented, "Owwwww...I can probably only start doing that at the earliest 5 years from now."

A father with a young child replied to the comment, "Yeah, the same goes for me, too!" 

And of course as IFers, we've had our own shares of pain triggers from sites like FB. Let me end this post with some quotes instead...

“It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who had ever been alive.”
- James Baldwin

“Forgiveness has nothing to do with absolving a criminal of his crime. It has everything to do with relieving oneself of the burden of being a victim--letting go of the pain and transforming oneself from victim to survivor.”
- C. R. Strahan“

“Pain is a part of life. Sometimes it's a big part, and sometimes it isn't, but either way, it's a part of the big puzzle, the deep music, the great game. Pain does two things: It teaches you, tells you that you're alive. Then it passes away and leaves you changed. It leaves you wiser, sometimes. Sometimes it leaves you stronger. Either way, pain leaves its mark, and everything important that will ever happen to you in life is going to involve it in one degree or another.”
- Jim Butcher

Quote sources: here and here