Sunday, January 3, 2010

Learning to face life


Nothing to do with atheism, but I think it has to do with the capability to face unpleasant situations.
When I was 9 years old, I went to the dentist for the first time. I was very nervous and afraid because of all the stories I had heard about how horrible it was to go to the dentist. When they were giving me the anestethic, it hurt so much that I pushed away the assistant's hand, and didn' let her. I started to cry, but both the assistant and the dentist were very kind and told me that I could come back another day.
Even today I don't really understand how, at that age, I was capable of that kind of reasoning, but I thought: "If I leave now, I won't be able to com back". I gathered all my courage and allowed them to inject the anestethic and fix my tooth. I understood that if I didn't do that at that moment, I would spend my whole life running away.
There is a precedent for this. When I was 7 I didn't allow a nurse to vaccinate me at school, and I was very ashamed afterwards for not having been able to face that. Having been able to face fear two years later made me feel much better, and certainly had reflexes on my future attitudes.

2 comments:

  1. It's so nice that now we have Ativan. ;)

    Is that you in the picture? So pretty!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yes, it's me when I was about 14 years old. :)

    ReplyDelete