My Elbow

so a little anecdote from my life...just because i feel like sharing. a few days ago i was doing some laundry and such. i was hanging things up to dry and had this awful thought. i'll spare you the details. let us just say it wasn't positive, and i shouldn't have been thinking it.

do you catch yourself thinking things you shouldn't? probably. most people do.

so there i was, having a not great thought, when i was hanging these items, and my hand slipped from the hanger, causing my elbow to crash against the shelf below. and oh how it hurt - one of those fast, sharp pains that shoot through your body. i groaned and moaned and tears started in my eyes. and then the pain subsided and i thought, "oh that's gonna leave a mark!" because all hail to chris farley and tommy boy.

and then it occurred to me that i wasn't thinking that bad thought anymore. and i didn't really want to. wouldn't it be crazy if every time we thought something bad, negative, wrong, etc., we had a pain shoot through our elbow or knee or whatever? we probably wouldn't think those things too often, is what. i know, i know. that isn't the way life works, and it would sort of defeat what i know to be life's purpose. i.e., we aren't pavlov's dogs. but strangely, i was grateful for that moment of pain. it snapped me back to reality...made me really think about what i was thinking about. and then it stopped me from thinking it. a little correction of sorts, if you will.

so then, maybe, sometimes, pain isn't such a bad thing after all.