Scott Peck, in his book “Further Along the Road Less Traveled“, discussed how our pain is related to our consciousness. He says that from the moment man ate from the Tree of Knowledge, he became self-conscious, and with it comes the consciousness of pain. He also compared the state of man before the fall to the state of infants and babes who know nothing of what’s happening around them.
When we grew up, our eyes were opened to the many difficulties and problems in life. We get sad, we get tired, and many times we even get so frustrated and we wish we could just go back to being a child.
Given the chance however, would you really go back and become a baby again? Would you rather that you become unconscious again of the many problems plaguing the world today? You wouldn’t need to fear losing your job anymore. You wouldn’t even care about the recession!
Yet would you really seek such an escape and give up the knowledge you’ve found as you grew in wisdom through the years? Would you so easily give up being able to know yourself and other people? Would you really give up how it feels to really really love and live life to the fullest measure possible?
The thing about hope is that it’s a positive force that shines the most when it’s dark. When everything’s going well, we hardly notice it’s there. But when things go against us, when our dreams fade and when we see no immediate reprieve from our troubles, that’s when hope does its best work for us.
"Where Hope Can Be Found"