A prospective client the other day asked me to send him samples of work that would show the detailed aspect of what I could capture. There are some precision mechanical parts that need to be shot.
All of a sudden yesterday (two days later) I remembered his request and realized I hadn’t sent anything.
So, I furtively looked around for anything small in my office that I could quickly (and hopefully clearly) shoot for him and not have him wait any longer.
I found a coin, a glasses screwdriver and tiny screw and while looking I came across my old iPhone. The one that broke a few weeks ago.
It still had power and in the action to power it down, I had to swipe left to right and in so doing, I got stuck with a small shard of glass into my finger from the broken screen.
Smart, huh? A dog with a mallet up his ass could have foreseen that one!
While it hurt a little (getting it out), it didn’t kill me. And hopefully I learned a lesson in the process.
But it did raise the question “Why on earth was I holding on to this phone?”
Things that could potentially have future use, I hang on to. I got that trait from my Dad, whose garage was full of nuts, washers, strange bits of metal, and such. But in all seriousness, what future use could this broken phone possibly have?
Anyway, as I carefully put it back into my desk drawer for some possible future use (no lesson learned, apparently), I began to think about the whole aspect of why we sometimes seem to hang onto things that hurt.
A lot of life is about hurt. Hurt done to us or hurt we do to someone else. So, a lot of our actions and path through life is about navigating past these hurts and moving ourselves onto greener pastures.
Most hurt is singular and gives us an emotional or physical hit that lasts a short period of time. Other hurt is more long lasting and even leaves scars that could be lifelong.
Therapists make a living among such hurts and sometimes they help us put a band-aid on it or even find a cream that heals it and lets us move forward.
In the absence of therapy, we often develop a mechanism that involves taking the hurt, putting it in a box and closing the lid on it. Never more to think about it.
But then there are those of us who occasionally open the lid and allow the hurt out and we are in pain all over again.
Why do we do that? Is it a case of we want ourselves to be hurt? Or do we open the lid, hoping that it has magically turned to dust inside, no longer with the ability to cause pain?
Whatever the reason, it does raise a question mark over the whole locking it away but somehow still hanging onto it!
Surely the right thing to do in situations where we really can’t resolve the pain in that instant, is to actually tackle the hurt, stab it in the heart, and then cremate it.
I’ve been around people who have come through remarkable hurt and yes, even those that carried horrible scars and always would.
Those who survived, mostly did so through therapy and the helpful support of family or friends.
I have also witnessed the cremation route and seen the success that such an aggressive act can achieve.
But whichever route we take, it is really important that we deal with our hurts and not have them lie in wait for us when we least expect it.
They can unravel our lives and do much more damage than a simple shard of glass in a finger.
… just a thought.