Pain! There are so many kinds of pain that we have to endure. From the headache to the pain of boredom we cry "relief"! People are treated with drugs from childbirth to death and when the Doc won't prescribe what everyone wants then they, being smart, locate someone who will sell them some form of pain relief.

Remember that old line? "I have been young and now I am old"? Well you can learn a lot if you keep your eyes and ears open all your life. I learned the hard way like most people do and I am willing to share some things with you. Now these days the children can find Heroin on their street corner. One mistake and you are shot for life! Life is a whole lot more dangerous than it was when I was a kid. The worst thing that could have happened to me is falling out of a tree or falling off the pipeline that crossed the creek. We didn't even know about sex until high school and it was better that way. We were just kids and had more fun. Something the kids today will never have again.

In order to pass along some perspective I want to tell you from my own experience. Lots of things in this life cause us pain. Nearly all our life we experience pain of one kind of another. It really doesn't matter much if you have the pain of a severe sickness or the pain of a lost lover. Pain is very real and we learn that right away.

What I want to tell you is how to live with pain. There are many ways that I have dealt with it. I recall one day when I was fishing as a kid I was watching two nice old black ladies. They were fat and walked on the sides of their shoes but life for them was a blast. They sat near me and I listened and watched. They were catching what I would call minnows. You never heard all the giggling and laughing like that before. Then the same line, "Honey pass me another scribble". "Scribble" was their shorthand for "shrimp". They had it wired. I am sure that they had more worries and pain then any ten people today and yet they didn't let it get a handle on them. They sit there all day and caught those minnows. Then they would take them home and grind them up to make fish patties. Folks when you are poor you can still eat and have fun too. Forget everything you have been taught on how to live life. Everyone travels in the fast lane today. No time for the simple stuff. In fact even time on your hands creates a problem. Everyone has to be entertained constantly. No one can just enjoy the quiet times in your life. That is one reason why I like metal detecting, because I can be off relaxing and having fun and I never get tired of it. You see one of the very necessary things to have in this life is a positive mental attitude.

You need to be able to laugh at yourself and enjoy the simple quiet things. I know a man that could sit at the creek bank and catch perch all day long and never tire of it. He understood. You can't go to the drugstore and find the bottle that will do what you need. The big problems in life mostly relate to how we spend the quiet times. If you do nothing about it before long you will be bored and you need to be drugged again.

I am going to tell you straight. You cannot get anything to relieve your pain or make you feel good that will help you in the long run. In fact all those things have a BIG problem. They are addictive and they require more drugs, more alcohol, and more money and by that time you are not so choosy where you can get the money. Your friends and family are the first casualties of this sickness.

Some use alcohol or prescription drugs but in the end those will kill you as sure as a gunshot. In the long run your life will not be an example to others, the only thing those things do for you is to insure that you will be a looser.

To the young person I say "there are some things that you cannot experiment with". Like playing Russian roulette one too many times. The secret is to match your speed with the natural speed of life. Learn to take one day at a time. Boy!! did I learn how wonderful that was when my mom had Altzheimers disease. It was a problem which was totally out of my control. I just couldn't live anymore if I thought for a second of the problem should last more than a day. Tomorrows are simply unendurable, I could not live except only until supper and bedtime. Nothing lasting more than one day. We managed to last for fifteen years before we lost her. One day at a time!

We need to have a realistic understanding of what life is and what it is not. There is no way to really live in the fast lane. It just doesn't work. Life is not fast, except when you are having fun! The slow stuff lasts forever!

To get a solid feel for how you can best live and avoid suffering the pains that trouble us I suggest you first work on a fun way to spend the quiet times. To something productive to the time spent will add up to something. I have suffered physical pain but much more emotional pain in my life. I have discovered that if I accept the trouble up front then I can get through it much faster with less problem. For myself I pray about things and then leave it in Gods hands. That gives me rest from the worry. I try to avoid any kind of painkillers for the troubling pains that I have. One little mental trick I will share with you. I focus my mind exactly on the most painful center in my body. Your mind then stops mentally running from the pain and when you do this you can feel the pain subside and I have found that distraction works great.

You can live the best life if you will use no alcohol or illegal drugs. Even avoid prescription pain relief if you can. You never know that tomorrow will be the day you will have to have it for the rest of your life! I think of those two old women that sat there that day and laughed away their troubles. Not only did they have fun they had fish patties for supper. That would have been a much more productive day than drinking away their problems.

If you have trouble thinking on how you can adjust your life speed and find time to laugh more and relax some then think about your childhood. The things you liked then are probably the things you will like now.

If you need drugs or alcohol to relax you are in quicksand! Maybe you can't tell it now but one day you will sink beneath the sands. I promise you that! Try to satisfy the kid in you! Go back to the simple things you did, and things you liked and improve on them. Build a better life, avoid the pitfalls and your end will be better than your beginning! Life will mean much more to you. Other people will mean more to you. Doing things the hard way is generally the only way out of a bad situation. As you continue to do the hard things they get easier with time. One day they will be just as natural to you as breathing and you will take no notice that they are hard. Life is worth living! Maybe you can't see it today but give it some time and look again. In the end you will be glad you made the effort.

When I was young I was sure that I would die at thirty. One day and I noticed that this was my thirtieth birthday and I started wondering about my life and what I would do. I can say now as an old man that in my mind I am the same young kid I was in my childhood. More has been added to me but I don't feel older than 18. I realize when I look into my bathroom mirror in the morning that my body thinks it should look older.... I am honestly more alive now at the end of my life than I have ever been! I have more optimism and positive outlook than you could imagine. If I had aborted my life when I was younger, when I thought life was not worth the effort then I would never really know that. All I can say is that for me it was worth the wait and I am happy and content that it has turned out rather well. I will hint to you about something else. There is more to life than most people think there is. That is what I need to say to you. It IS worth the effort to do things right and do the hard things. As it turns out that is the stuff that grinds the rock to produce the jewel!

The OldSalt