Paper cuts

This past Sunday night I returned to my part time job at FedEx Express. I work at the main sort facility at Sky Harbor Airport here in Phoenix. We sort packages that come in from all parts of Arizona, and the United States, and re-direct them to destinations all over the world. This requires me to scan, stack, or move, a large volume of cardboard boxed packages into various size containers for transport by air or ground. During my shift a few nights ago, while I was filling a container with these boxes, my left hand slipped on the edge of one of the larger boxes and I got a deep paper cut on the tip of my left pinky finger. Because this happens all the time, I had several band aides already in my pocket and quickly applied two of them to the tip of my finger to prevent the blood from getting on the packages and prevent the obvious risk of infection. Within a minute, I was back to stacking, scanning and loading the boxes into the container as if nothing had happened. 

When I finally got home for the night, I removed the band aides before taking a very long hot shower. Once out of the shower, I inspected the cut and begin to think about the simple, yet obvious metaphor of my paper cut. I have had 10 operations in my life. I have been through 2 divorces. I have had many moments in my life where I felt like nothing could possibly go right and yet I kept on going. When it all boils down to the basics, almost everything that happens to us in our lives that is painful or difficult, is like a simple paper cut. The pain never lasts, it always heals and eventually we forget that painful moment it happened. There are painful moments in life that will always leave a scar. There are moments that we should not forget because the pain and the lesson we learn from them makes us stronger in some way. However, in life, the little things that sting for only a few minutes, or hours, are like paper cuts. We can’t and shouldn’t make a big deal out of them. Apply a few band aides and keep moving forward.