The importance of being punched in the face and learning about yourself – metaphorically and physically.
No one really wants to get punched in the face, but everyone should experience it. Some people deserve it and need it, some don’t deserve it but can learn from it, and some people will put themself in a position to risk it, embrace it and learn from it. Whether you are found wanting from your response or embrace the reaction and learn from it is something you can never know, unless you have experienced a good hard punch in the face. Some people punch themselves in the face, repeatedly. If this is you, learn from it, or you are stupid at worst and a slow learner at best.
Life is hard because the greatest challenges you will face will not be ones that you choose. You can choose to climb a mountain, do a degree, train to compete at Muay Thai or select an immeasurable number of challenges available to test your mettle and develop your will power. However, until life has punched you in the face, you really don’t know how you will react. You can prepare yourself and learn about how you will react metaphorically by experiencing it physically.
A physical test can challenge you emotionally, test your ability to endure, teach you the benefits of being tenacious and persistent, but it will lack that emotional disgust and lizard brain reaction that will overcome you and be immediately apparent when you get punched in the face physically. There is no experience like it. What you immediately feel in your gut, your revulsion, your indignance, your contempt for who hit you, will teach you a lot about yourself that you cannot fake, prepare for or assume from any other experience.
When you get punched in the face, hard, you will immediately face an overwhelming number of emotions that will be scrambled and range from disgust to anger. How you react, want to react and do react will be instantaneously transformative . You will experience an immediate realization that the ability to differentiate between what you want, what you can do and what you do, will determine who you are. Your options will define you and be a mirror to who you really are. Your options will flash before your eyes in an instant. What you do will be determined by your self-control, context and the outcome of your chosen response determined more by what person you want to be seen as than who you really are. These may align or they may contrast and only you will know. There will be a rapid realization that your immediate response may not match your actual response and you will have excuses for the differences, if any.
I believe everyone wants to be braver at certain times and when you do not measure up to your own expectations of yourself, you can face your fears and develop them, or you can hide from them and deceive yourself.
Life will metaphorically punch you in the face many times, but it is the physical act of being punched in the face that will teach you about yourself and allow you to be a stronger version of yourself through self-awareness. It can be as simple as standing in front of someone with your hands down and getting them to punch you in the face, hard. Then see how you feel and how you react. This, however, lacks context, reason and parameters to test yourself, as it is a little weird and gimmicky. Any one-off contrived lesson risks being too constrained, specific and not repetitive enough. It has the punch face component of the test but who punches, when and why is also important for measuring your response.
Life must have risks.
Risk is critical for developing mental health. Riding a bike when you are a kid – without a helmet. Wrestling other kids, asking people on dates when you are a teenager, building your own jumps, climbing into your own tree house and exploring the neighborhood on a bike, in the rain and cold, without a map or phone and being allowed to fall over, hurt yourself and find your way home, hungry. This is what growing up should teach you. That risk develops someone’s ability to cope with life and that taking risk is great for future mental strength. A generation of kids protected from the outdoors, from crashing bikes, from being lost, from fighting in the school yard, from taking an insult and feeling ashamed for being a dick, will grow up to be a generation of people who need good jobs just to pay for their psychologist bills but incapable of keeping good jobs because they can’t handle an insult, a setback and expect to get treated fairly in an unfair world.
Doing hard things growing up and taking risks routinely is a key to being capable and strong adults who can cope with setbacks and get through a bad hair day, a breakup, a job loss, a loved one getting cancer. Realizing as you get older, you are not special and deserve no special treatment, despite demanding it and stomping your feet. The world doesn’t really care, make your own way and be prepared to get punched in the face by taking risks. People who routinely take measured risks are better equipped to take punches in the face in life.
Be in positions where you can get punched in the face.
When you are growing up, do sports and face adversity routinely. Kids should have to do something hard. It could be Muay Thai or piano. It must be hard to achieve and will have many setbacks. Kids should have a choice and input into what interests them, but the choice should be – you can do any sport you want, 4 days a week, but you must do a sport. If you sign up for a season, complete the season. It must be hard to do routinely and hard to get good at. Something that makes them realise more about themselves and that everyone is different. Something they learn they can improve at through persistence and hard work. That no matter how hard they try, others will be better than them, some worse, some will be dicks and others just mean, but they will learn to cope better in life. Parents should teach persistence through adversity and that it only matters how much they improve based on their efforts.
People wonder why kids have trouble coping with life as they grow up when the answer lies in more routine risk taking, persistence at hard activities, team sports and learning to take punches in the face as they grow up. Being less protected in what they do and not being made to persist until a level of competency is reached. Other answers lie in negative developments in society; like physical training not being compulsory, participation in sport carnivals being optional and a constant acceptance of kids being allowed to choose and avoid things they don’t feel like or want to do today. Getting rewarded for the most basic thing as participating was always doomed to develop weak minded people. It is generational development of weak parents thinking their kids will be better if they are nicer to them, protect them more, defend them all the time and let the kids winge their way to an easy path. Kids grow up with pre-installed excuses and expectations that they are special and are entitled, when they have done nothing to deserve anything because their parents contribute by always defending special little Johnny who never learns consequence. Kids who are risk averse, entitled, special and unique need to experience ‘being punched in the face’ by taking risks doing sport, having adventures and being able to learn to get though life not being protected and defended through every mistake, by their parents.
Shame can be good.
If you act like a dick and get punched in the face, ask yourself, why you got punched in the face before you go acting indignant. Do not blame anyone until you have a good hard look at yourself. Maybe you were a dick and deserved it? Maybe someone was putting you in your place because you needed to be brought down a peg, because you were insulting someone, being demeaning, being a bully and basically an entitled prick who was acting poorly? A good punch to your face could be good for you – to help you wake up to yourself.
Being ashamed of yourself and feeling bad can be a good motivator to improve yourself. If your feelings are hurt, ask why and say, ‘so what’. They are only feelings. Nothing happens to me – I can overcome them. If you cannot keep up with your team and feel ashamed, you can practice more or quit. If you feel bad you are not good at your sport and feel ashamed, you can practice more, persist and develop your skills, being proud of your efforts, or go and cry about it and get nowhere. If you fail your math test and feel ashamed for being teased as a dumbass, you can study harder, show your tormentors by being better, or cry to mum about it. Feeling shame can be like a punch in the face. It is your choice how you respond to what happens to you. Of course, people who constantly and persistently shame others deserve a punch in the face as they are usually just diverting others from their own shames.
Learn to get hurt and feel hurt.
You will get hurt in life. Physically and emotionally. Take a punch in the face and learn to feel hurt. Face punches hurt for days, leave bruises, everyone notices, and they also make you feel ashamed for no valid reason. Facial bruises can be seen by everyone and are more telling than a sore foot no one sees. The pain is physical, emotional and noticed by others. Being punched in the face will help you learn how to face up to your hurt but also how to face others while you do it – how to keep going until the bruising fades.
Toughness only comes from experience and developed ability to cope.
Do you want to be tougher? If the answer is yes, you must get punched in the face. You may think you are tough now, but if you have never been physically punched in the face, you can never improve your toughness because you don’t know. No amount of long treks, cold swims, massive bench press or tattoos can make you tough in your soul, until you learn to take a punch in the face. Everything that looks tough is meaningless without the personal knowledge that you can take a punch in the face. You can’t hide from it or get more tattoos to cover up for what you lack. You must take a punch and feel it and grow from it.
Toughness can be many things and mean different things to different people. A child abuse victim growing up ashamed and coping with life, then being able to stand in court and testify against their abuser is toughness many could not face. Running at bullets and inspiring men in battle is another form of toughness. Dealing with cancer or living with chronic pain you don’t sook to everyone about is tough. True toughness comes from the soul and your character not from any look you entertain, or behaviour you mimic from a movie. Toughness is only skin deep if you have never taken a punch in the face and learnt from it.
How do you react under pressure?
If you want to know how you will react in a pressure situation, take a punch in the face. You will know quickly if you are a fighter or a runner, if you are composed or wild, if you cry or get angry. Can you keep it together under pressure? You could do a six-week course in leadership and dealing with pressure, but you still won’t know until you have been under true pressure, with a risk of injury. All the role-playing scenario games won’t work 100%, until you are truly punched in the face. Before you know it you will be a lobster in boiling water that cannot get out. Better to be more aware before going into the pot. It is more time efficient to take the punch in the face at the start of the course, then spend the next 6 weeks learning how to improve how you react.
To keep your ego in check.
You must believe in yourself, but when your ego starts writing cheques you cannot cash and your friends start teasing you for being a dick, it is time to take a punch in the face. Your ego will be an enemy in life. Keep it in check by always realizing there are people out there better than you – at everything thing you do. A good solid face punch will keep you humble and realistic. It is just a shame that many people who deserve a punch in the face for their ego don’t get one soon or often enough. Humility is a benefit of being punched in the face.
To deal with shock and see if you fight back or cry.
How do you deal with shock like unexpected bad news, break ups, job losses, family deaths, cancer and all the bad shit that could happen in life? Life will try to break you; will make you cry and question everything. The only way to keep going at times is to plod on until it passes. Mental strength is often just the ability to keep going.
If you get punched in the face in your informative years, you will understand yourself better and cope more effectively when you need to cry, fight or hide away. A punch to the face will teach you what shock is like, how unfair life can be and how you react. More importantly, what you need to do to cope when must endure the punches you do not see coming. The more you get up from being punched in the face the more coping skills you will have and your ability to inspire yourself and others will grow.
To feel alive.
Nothing makes you feel more alive than the heightened arousal state of facing fears. When you get punched in the face, you feel alive. You feel physical and emotional responses that energize you and shoot adrenaline through you. Fighting back makes you feel purpose, alive and determined. Being punched hard can hurt but the sting and pain will give you feelings that can set a course for your life. To avoid it happening again or to suck it up and use it to drive you further. Basic military tactics are to run into the ambush and that is what you should do every time you get blindsided with shit. Face it, take the punch and feel alive and determined. Like diving into freezing water to sharpen our focus and senses.
What are you made of?
Being punched in the face will answer the question we all ask ourselves – what are we made of? We all want to know this, until we don’t like the answer. There is no downside to knowing what you are made of and doing something with it. Be the best you can be, based on who you really are, not who you think you are. The difference is how you respond to a hard punch in the face. Do you face fears, are you found wanting, do you cry, do you know what is right but lack the guts to do it? Most of us strive to be better people and that starts with self-honesty. That starts with knowing how you can take a punch in the face and what you do about it.
When you get punched in the face, you may feel abused, aghast, hurt, frightened, ashamed and flabbergasted. Your first response will be primitive. Flight or fight. To cower, to run or to fight back. This will be an immediate shock and your response is the key to your soul. Bravery is the ability to face challenges in the presence of fear and you will know if you can be brave or not in that moment.
Do you want to fight and immediately respond in anger, or do you have the self-control to take in the context and act appropriately, without fear, with a determination to fight back, with a plan, not an immediate anger response? Do you cower down and pray for it to end, crawl away and cry quietly? Are you too overcome to care about what others think, what you think about yourself, and too much of a coward to fight back? Do you wish you responded differently, think about it and plan to do something differently next time? Do you accept your response internally? Or do you seek empathy from others, lay blame and take no responsibility for being found wanting? Realizing later, you wish you had acted differently. You will carry this as shame if you do not work on your fears.
Whether you fight, take flight or stay and cry matters naught compared to how you deal with your own response and learn from it. So, you can move closer to who you want to be through self-analysis. The lesson is in your ability to learn how your feelings respond and how you can better deal with them for you to be a person you can be proud of. Self-analysis with change is harder than any punch in the face.
If your shame makes you bitter and you can only come up with blame and excuses for your own failings, your only lesson is to avoid life challenges. Deceiving yourself and those around you is not the path to any happiness, mental stability or acceptance in society but it is a path some take. It will not necessarily limit success in life, as deception, ego and the ability to live an untrue life, can transform many a person’s goals into reality at the expense of personal integrity. This trait is equaled by a person’s lack of self-awareness, arrogance and core values, having low standards for themselves.
So, what now?
Not everyone is a fighter and not everyone wants to be. It is about being the person you want to be by knowing who you are and then working on being better. Not selfish better, but useful in society and doing the best you can with what you have and what suits you. Being a fighter is simply standing up for something that is important to you, to your village and your society. To do this you will face challenges and knowing how you react when being punched in the face will help you strive further.
Go and take measured risks, learn how to take a punch in the face. If you can routinely face adversity you are preparing yourself for life and the battles ahead. It is enlightening, spiritual and critical, that you go and learn how to take a punch in the face. If you already have, you appreciate it and know you need to do it again!
