As the First World War made painfully clear, when politicians and generals lead nations into war, they almost invariably assume swift victory, and have a remarkably enduring tendency not to foresee problems that, in hindsight, seem obvious.
I was painfully shy, and I had tremendous difficulty making friends. So, lacking friends, I watched other people. Watching is something all writers must do, and it was in junior high that I learned to do it.
My overall message for labor members is... that we understand that the benefits of trade are clear, but the disruption and the dislocation are painfully concentrated and we can't ignore them.
Mothers suffer in the workplace. That fact is by now so painfully familiar it even has a name: the motherhood penalty.
The energy that New York exudes is as much the light of extinguished souls as it is the spark of individual enterprise. And while the full meaning of the city may prove elusive, all New Yorkers are painfully aware that it remains an intractable mass of contradictions. It is not just the extremes of wealth and poverty living side by side.
In high school, I was so painfully self-aware that how I thought of myself was probably very different from what other people thought of me. I thought of myself as just painfully awkward and dorky. I had a lot of hair and was kind of weird. I sang a lot in the hallways.
In school I was painfully shy. But as soon as I had to get up in front of the class and give a book report, it was alarming - I'd suddenly be very articulate.
Globalisation has made us more vulnerable. It creates a world without borders, and makes us painfully aware of the limitations of our present instruments, and of politics, to meet its challenges.
I have a to-do list and I have a farm I care for, and things I like to do for fun - going to movies and all that stuff. It's a painfully normal life!
I think you've got to like people. There are MPs who are either painfully shy or who don't like public speaking or don't socialise very well, and you just think this must be the worst job in the world for them.
