I stood in the backyard practicing my batting stance.
I steadied the wooden near my shoulder. Then, I took a practice hack – and clobbered my sister in the face on the backswing.
Startled, my sister started to cry. Then she ran into the house to let our father know what happened.
It was an honest childhood mistake. My sister had stood too close to me. I hadn’t checked my surroundings before swinging the bat.
But I still got in trouble.
Some years later, the two of us were standing in the same spot in the yard of our childhood home. I had just demonstrated how to swing a golf club. Now, my sister was giving it a try.
She took a practice swing — and clobbered me in the face. Karma couldn’t have been more complete.
My father ran out of the house, concern washed over his face. He was frantic, speaking a mile a minute.
Are you alright? Are you bruised? Are you bleeding?
I was in my late teens by this point and well-conditioned to take a blow like this. So, I found his over-the-top reaction amusing.
I’ll be fine, I chuckled. I’m just an idiot. But I guess we’ve all learned our lessons about standing too close.
Indeed, we had. All too well.
That’s a bitter pill to swallow.
This adage has transcended the generations.
It’s been years – decades really – since the days of bitter-tasting medicine. These days, many pills are coated in sugar, mixed into gummies, or otherwise made to seem bland.
Yet, the phrase remains transcendent. Why is that?
I believe this has everything to do with the underlying message. We may have solved the Bitter Medicine Taste problem. But we haven’t found a way to avert unpleasantness itself.
This might not be as dire a concern as it seems.
After all, discomfort is an important part of our life experience. A strange rite of passage. A feature, not a bug.
Old school medicine carried the promise of healing if you could get through the bitterness first. Perhaps swallowing those new school bitter pills – accepting discomfort – can bring us the promise of some invaluable lessons as well.
I am proof positive of this idea.
I would not have understood the danger of black ice if I hadn’t once slipped on it and taken a spill. I would not have appreciated the value of sunscreen if I hadn’t once gotten sunburned. Such knowledge was embedded in the bitter pill I swallowed each time.
Now, this theory is far from absolute. When discomfort becomes habitual or continuous, its lessons wash away. Suffering is all that remains.
This is why teaching someone a lesson with a fist or a belt is a fool’s errand. Beyond being immoral – and in many cases, illegal – this act does little beside inflict vengeful damage upon its victims. It’s also why intentional self-harm – in all its forms – is nothing short of disastrous.
But, when we allow ourselves to spontaneously encounter discomfort, we often come out of the experience wiser. When we step out of our cocoons – accepting the risk of unpleasantness in the process – we tend to reap the benefits.
The pain of the bitter medicine is temporary. But the lessons are forever.
This is why I don’t regret taking that golf club to the face (although I still feel guilty for accidentally hitting my sister years earlier). The experience taught me what I would never have otherwise learned.
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
As I write these words, we are nearing the end of another year.
The holiday spirit is in full swing. And we’re preparing to flip the calendar over once again.
A year is just a construct. One I don’t take all that much stock in celebrating.
Yet, this trip around the sun has been quite the journey.
I started the year by undergoing ankle surgery. The procedure relieved some lower leg discomfort that had turned into suffering. But it left me with a grueling rehab.
I learned much from this ordeal. I became familiar with the tribulations of disability. And through the process, I found out just what I was made of.
But even after I got my range of motion back, I wasn’t out of the woods. I was able to walk unencumbered once again, and I would soon be back to running.
But the injuries kept coming. A lower back bruise. Right knee tendonitis. A stress fracture in my left leg. An intercostal strain. A right hip flexor strain.
Some of these injuries were exercise-related. Others were the product of bad luck. All caused me more than a modicum of discomfort – leaving me wondering when I’d ever be back to “normal.”
But licking my wounds and ruing misfortune was getting me nowhere. So, I embarked on a new approach.
I started thinking of all these injuries as bitter medicine. As ordeals I’d need to endure to learn more about myself.
For years, I’d neglected this task. I’d focused on brain health, on expanding knowledge, and on honing decision-making. I’d also focused on heart health, making a concerted effort to stay in shape.
But the rest of me? I often took that for granted.
Who cared how my joints operated, how my bones replenished themselves, or how my muscles interconnected? I hardly noticed them when I was healthy. So, I felt little need to maintain their function.
It was only when things went wrong that I started to see the whole picture. That experience taught me how to properly take care of myself from head to toe.
So yes, this year has been unpleasant at times. In the most physical, visceral of ways. But I wouldn’t trade this ride I’ve been on for the world.
For more than half a century, families have made a pilgrimage to the middle of Florida.
Their destination? A 27,000-square-acre oasis called Walt Disney World.
Walt Disney World has long been billed as The Happiest Place on Earth. And as a four-time visitor, I can verify that elation does radiate there like the tropical sunshine that illuminates the grounds.
Yet, this billing has an unspoken downside. For once families, leave the oasis – once they reach Interstate 4 or the Orlando International Airport – they return to reality. A reality that, by definition, is less happy and less pleasant than the place they’ve just visited.
This is an unsettling fact. One that we’re determined to dispel.
We try ever harder to protect our children from unpleasantness and to delude ourselves from its existence. We wall ourselves off inside convenient fantasies and put our risk-aversion senses on overdrive. We encase the pills of our life experience in a mountain of sugar, consequences be damned.
But such attempts are far from ironclad. Now and then, unpleasantness overwhelms our defenses, washing away our defenses.
Maybe this unpleasantness is an unconscionable terror attack on our shores. Or a financial meltdown in our markets. Or even a pandemic infesting our atmosphere.
Our pleasantness at all costs crusade leaves us ill-equipped to handle such stark reality. So, we stumble through the fallout, feeling lost and betrayed. And all the while, we wish the experience had never happened.
Perhaps we can follow a more productive path. Instead of relying on dreams of revisionist history to restore our fantasy, perhaps we can build off our ordeal. To take the lessons of bitter medicine, internalize them, and be better for it.
I’ve embarked on this journey, this past year especially. But my experience – and my mindset – should be anything but extraordinary. It should be but one case of millions – millions who accept unpleasantness as a vessel toward improvement, rather than a scourge to eradicate.
Let’s make it so.