The most authentic thing about us is our capacity to create, to overcome, to endure, to transform, to love, and to be greater than our suffering.
But we have to be able to get past our pain. We have to conjure a purpose that allows us to rise above it, to use it. Pain is so very powerful, but it can be a vehicle used to empower or destroy us. And the saying is so very true: if you don't heal from whatever it is that hurt you, you'll bleed on people who didn't cut you.
If you don't find a way to use your pain constructively, if you don't find purpose in life, you slowly commit a form of spiritual suicide. And that affects not only you — it poisons the ground of the people who depend on you.
Know that ultrarunning is about going into pain, in a controlled manner, until you build an immunity to it. It's about increasing your resolve, your mental bend-strength. It's about recognizing your pain for what it really is, realizing its power, and recalibrating your mind to use it to extend your breaking point.
And when we can get to that point, in that headspace, we fully understand the need for pain. The cure for pain is in the pain.