What Money Can’t Buy

By Mia Maysack, PNN Columnist

Just about everyone I've encountered has commented on their lack of cheer over the holiday season. I can relate to that in my own way, but also think we put too much pressure on ourselves to be appropriately cheerful when the calendar tells us to be.

I have been disheartened by the fact society presents the holidays as a joyous time, when they really seem to be more of an excuse to spend more than we should and consume more than we need.

This often results in people being rude in stores or driving recklessly, as if their lives are more important than anyone else's. We fixate on what we want or lack -- as opposed to what others may need. The holiday spirit should be less about us and more about what we can do for others.

Some of us are without our loved ones-- not just during the holidays, but literally every day. In the very house or apartment next to yours, there could be someone silently suffering. On our own streets, people are homeless or starving as we rush by them, too busy to care. On the other side of the world, there are innocent people effectively being wiped out via genocide.

I think it's absolutely okay that we are not all that jolly. In fact, if we were, there would be something extraordinarily wrong with that. This isn't to belittle anyone feeling joyful, it's solely a matter of keeping things in perspective.

Please take time in the new year to enjoy this opportunity to love yourself and appreciate those around you. If you are working, understand that your job is the dream of the unemployed. Reflect on what you've made it through and accomplished -- even if all you managed to do was live another year and survive.

Do something small to lift yourself up -- whether its fresh air, listening to music, making a tasty dish, or volunteering or donating in a meaningful way for another person.

There will come a day when the only things you long for are those that money can’t buy. There will be times when you'd give anything to revisit the past that came and went so quickly.

The only item on our holiday wish lists should be more time – time to optimally utilize the gifts we already have and to make the most of life while we still can.

Sending prayers to all of you for a safe, healthy and gentle 2024.

Mia Maysack lives with chronic migraine, cluster headache and fibromyalgia. She is a healthcare reform advocate and founder of Keepin’ Our Heads Up, a support network; Peace & Love, a life coaching practice; and Still We Rise, an organization that seeks to alleviate pain of all kinds.

A Pained Life: My New Year’s Resolution

By Carol Levy, PNN Columnist

I am visiting at my sister's house. This was 38 years ago, but I still remember it and feel the hurt and pain as though it was yesterday.

My 12-year old nephew looks down at my penny loafers. Pointing to the penny in each shoe, he asks, “Are you wearing them to let everyone know how poor you are?"

That idea could only have come from his mother. This was a few years after the trigeminal neuralgia pain started, which disabled me and left me virtually housebound.

Unable to work and having no savings on which to rely (I was 26 at the time), I had to do something I never could have imagined. I went on public assistance. I was embarrassed and humiliated asking for that kind of help. That my family saw it as a black mark only made it that much worse.

In a way though, it was a badge of honor.  Not because I went to the state for help with food stamps and medical assistance, but because I chose to do what I needed to do.

The emotional cost to keep control and be as independent as possible -- in spite of the pain and the disability -- was enormous.  But I did it anyway.

What a good lesson that would have been for my nephew. Aunt Carol had a choice: Go back home and live with her parents (which would have been a calamity for all of us and a loss of my independence), or do what she needed to do to stay in control of her life even though it was very difficult. And she bravely chose the latter.

Instead the lesson learned was: Aunt Carol is poor and we should look down on her.

How many times have we had awful things said to us by family, coworkers, friends and people we turned to for help, only to be held in scorn, derision or plain indifference? And yet we held their “truths” as truths to be held dear.

I remember an Oprah Winfrey show from many years ago. Her admonition was as true then as it is now. Hold onto anger against another and who does it hurt?

They will forget what they said and the anger, nastiness and humiliation they showed us; while we hold onto the hurt and pain their words and behaviors caused.

So, at the end of the day, the one that stays hurt is not them, but us.

It's a new year. My resolution is to let go of all the hurt and pain that others have sent my way. It took me almost 38 years to realize I needed to make this change in my thinking. But, as they say, better late than never.

Carol Jay Levy has lived with trigeminal neuralgia, a chronic facial pain disorder, for over 30 years. She is the author of “A Pained Life, A Chronic Pain Journey.” 

Carol is the moderator of the Facebook support group “Women in Pain Awareness.” Her blog “The Pained Life” can be found here.

The information in this column should not be considered as professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. It is for informational purposes only and represent the author’s opinions alone. It does not inherently express or reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of Pain News Network.