I heard this story from a Buddhist practitioner:

“A man notices a dog sitting on a porch, whining in pain.
He asks, ‘What’s wrong with you? Why are you whining?’
The dog answers, ‘I’m sitting on a nail … and if I get up, it will hurt too much.’” 

So the dog continues to sit because he feels safer choosing the pain he knows over the pain he fears might come with change.

I remember this story well because I was like that dog. I was in pain, but I was afraid to move. I was afraid to get up.

We all have nails – some big, some small. Nails that hurt us, poke at us, and keep us in a state of quiet unrest. Some are career nails: work that drains us. Some are relationship nails – we don’t leave for fear of being alone. Others are health nails, friendship nails, family nails.

For me, at age fifty-four, four major “nails” collided in my life: I was diagnosed with breast cancer and had a bilateral mastectomy; my father died; my firstborn son was addicted to heroin; and I left the school community where I had served as Head of School for seventeen years.

With all of these nails, I felt adrift – aching, beaten down, and lost.
But it was because of this pain – not in spite of it – that I finally found the courage to change my life.

That moment became the beginning of It Takes a Lifetime to Learn How to Live.

The truth is simple, and not always easy to accept: At some point, the pain of staying becomes greater than the fear of getting up.

…and we all have the possibility of getting up. The question is when.