GAIL WHITE Pull out the thorn that's keeping you in pain

I've been doing a lot of thinking lately.
It started when I was listening to a friend, a friend grieving over a recent crisis in her life, when I recalled a conversation I had with her two years ago about the same crisis.
She was repeating the same story over again, and she didn't realize it.
When I mentioned the similarities to her, she became immediately defensive and insisted the circumstances were completely different.
She then began to recite how the two instances were different.
She was right. The names were different. The specifics of the circumstances weren't the same. But take away those two things and this was the same story as two years ago.
I didn't say a word when she was done justifying, partly because I had nothing to say. I had said it two years ago.
The other part of me was deep in thought.
Conclusions
It seems, every time I turn around, I am talking with someone about a crisis in their life. Upon listening and analyzing, I have discovered two conclusions about life crises.
First of all, everyone has them. There is not a person alive who has not endured trials in their life. Everyone has hardships, disappointments, unforeseen life-changing events. But it seems, in my experience with people's crises, that though there are many crises to endure in a lifetime, there is one that is the thorn in the side.
Everyone has this one "thing" that they must overcome. For some it is illness, for others it is forgiveness. For some, that one thing keeping them from overcoming is addiction, for others it is fear. Money, love, abuse, anger, revenge, envy -- all can be thorns pricking at people who search for happiness.
Dealing with it
The second thing I have discovered listening to crisis stories is that some people never deal with their thorn.
Some people spend a lifetime repeating the same crisis over and over. The specifics of the story change, the names and places, but the basic premise of the crisis remains the same. They are stuck in a "Groundhog Day" of crisis.
There is the middle-aged divorced woman, happy that the belittling, derogatory, philandering ex-husband is gone from her life -- until she fills the void of loneliness with the same man; different name, same characteristics. Her life continues in the same up-and-down roller coaster of love because she never stopped, looked in the mirror and decided to love herself first.
Then there is the alcoholic who drinks himself a river away from family and friends. When the crisis hits bottom, he stops, tries to rehabilitate and change, but never takes the final steps to separate himself from the bottle.
A daughter, angry at injustices placed on her by her parents when she was a child, tries to push the memories behind her. The more she pushes, the more she ends up rearing her children the same way, passing her thorn to the next generation.
The man, determined to give his children more than he had, instead, finds himself compromising time for money. There is never enough of either. Obsessed with stuff, money becomes the thorn.
One of the ugliest thorns to carry is revenge. I have listened to people's self-made crisis over revenge and been amazed at the depths people will travel to exact revenge on another -- usually over the smallest, most insignificant of infractions. Children, animals, sporting events and livelihoods become pawns in the game when someone allows revenge to become a thorn in their life.
Revenge is dangerous
Revenge is a dangerous thorn. Once you "get it," it's never as satisfying as you thought it would be, which causes the thorn to grow.
You have to conquer that one thing that hangs on like a thorn in your side.
The thorn-infested try to say that other people are "lucky." It's not luck, it's hard work. Pruning a thorn takes time, discipline and dedication, but once it's gone, you find yourself suddenly enjoying life's roses.
gwhite@vindy.com