1. Don’t get hurt. 
2. Be kind. 
3. Have fun. 

Those were the three rules of life that one of my professors (shoutout Prof. Vreeland) gave to the seniors as he was sending us off into the real world. He said that the rules were in order too: don’t have fun if you’re not being kind, don’t keep on being kind if it’s getting you hurt, and just don’t get hurt. Honestly, there is so much wisdom in what he shared with us he’s literally the most amazing prof ever, but something I’ve been thinking about recently is that first line: “don’t get hurt.” 

I think there’s a bit more nuance to that which I think can be distinguished by separating hurt into one of two categories: hurt that enlarges your life, and hurt that shrinks it. 

There’s the type of hurt that can come from loving others, risking rejection, training hard, being vulnerable, or caring deeply about something that might not work out. This type of hurt often leaves scars yes, but for me personally, I’ve noticed that they expand your capacity to live. You become stronger and wiser from these experiences, more empathetic, more human. 

But then there’s the type of hurt that destroys your ability to live life as it was meant to be. Abuse. Deep betrayal. Trauma that leaves someone unable to trust or love again. That pain shrinks your worldview and diminishes your ability to live fully.

I don’t think the question we should be revolving around is “does this hurt?” But rather, “what is this hurt doing to me?” We should be asking whether hardships in life are deepening or diminishing our humanity? 

Because growth-oriented pain doesn’t break your spirit the same way destructive pain does. Beneath the sadness is often meaning: you hurt because you cared, tried, hoped, loved. That pain has often been worth it since it grew who I am as a person. Destructive pain on the other hand hollows people out, making them fearful, making them small. 

And I think that the hardest part in life is that you usually don’t know beforehand which category pain will fall into. That’s just a real risk of being human I’m not too sure what to make of. 

You can train really hard and become stronger, or permanently injured. 

You can fall in love and grow enormously, or walk away broken. 

There’s really no safe formula that can guarantee growth without danger. So perhaps wisdom is not learning how to “not get hurt,” but maybe it’s about learning which pain is meaningful versus self-destructive, how to build foundations that protect you from breaking, and knowing when to walk away. 

For a case study, it’s interesting to look at people like David Goggins: on the one hand, he has put himself through so much growth-oriented pain he turned his entire life around from a 300 pound cockroach sprayer to the toughest man on the planet. But at the same time, if you read his book you’ll learn about the trauma he suffered from his father, the abuse he went through at school, and you’ll see his life is riddled with so much destructive pain that still leaves him with demons to this day. 

And I think that contrast reveals something important: pain alone doesn’t make people stronger. Recovery does.  

A good workout tears your muscle so it can rebuild stronger. But if you never recover, the body eventually collapses. 

Maybe emotional pain is similar: we need enough emotional pain in our lives to grow us, but if we don’t have the safety from our family, the love from our friends, and the mental/emotional rest to integrate that pain into our growth, then it might break us apart.  

Because in the end, it seems that human beings require both vulnerability and wisdom. The vulnerability to accept all types of pain which have the potential to grow us, and the wisdom to keep destructive pain from having the final say. It’s hard to make the right call in every situation of course, but perhaps that’s something we just need to learn more about as we live the rest of our lives.