I know the saying, “Pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional.” is cliched as hell, but there’s a bunch of truth to it.

The thing is some pain is worth it. It’s hard to go through life living in hedonism. At some point, we want challenge in our lives that makes life worthwhile.

However, talking about pain is often a downer subject. We ignore it because we’re afraid of how to respond to it. But I look at this scene from Komi Can’t Communicate Volume 26 and you see that going through some kind of pain is fine.

Hell, even talking about some of the pain is fine. The troublesome thing about pain is that we often hide it alone because we’re so afraid of sharing it with others.

Don’t do that. There’s people who can take your pain. Maybe not a whole lot, but they can ease some of the burden.

And as Komi describes, going through and processing pain does wonders for the body and mind. Reality is often wild, but I find that exploring the pain does wonders for people. A good amount of people who have thrived have done so.

Contrary to what the world says, go sit down with the right amount of pain and form a healthy relationship with it. Your mental health will thank you and you can shine like Komi.