EVERYBODY ASKS ABOUT the pain as if it's a bad thing. Actually, I made friends with it years ago, and now Ms. P. and I have an intimate relationship. We don't see each other for a while, then we meet again and it's like no time has passed. I have learned so much from her. She shares truths I prefer to ignore. For instance, I have a tendency to live as if I were not mortal. She won't put up with such arrogance and sets me straight. And when I forget how many people are suffering all over the world, she reminds me. With her help, after every accident, I am humbled. Without her, I would be a compassionless ass.

Spending time with Ms. P. is just one gift of an injury. There are many.

Getting hurt is like dying without having to go that far. Those you care about unself-consciously show how much they care about you.

Any injury worth the time will slow you down. Precisely what we all desperately need. An injury will make you do one thing at a time. You'll re-remember that multitasking only means you're doing several things poorly. Injured, you must focus on one thing for it to happen at all. With this singularity of focus comes happiness, for you have been released from distraction, the most corrosive disease of 21st-century life.

With only one hand, it takes me minutes to button up my jeans. Try it yourself. For the first few days I can't do it at all and have to wear sweats around the house like an incontinent old man. I can't squeeze toothpaste onto my toothbrush; instead I squeeze it onto my tongue. Like a kindergartner, I can't tie my shoelaces; my daughters do it for me, giggling.

I start using my mouth again, like a dog. To pull on my shirt. To pull it off by the sleeve. To unscrew a ketchup cap. To lick food off the side of my face. Our tongues, lips, and teeth are so useful and yet so underutilized.

By necessity, I learn how to do two things surprisingly quickly: popping open the childproof bottles of painkillers with one hand and typing swiftly, without pecking, with that same hand.

If challenge is something we all need—and I believe we do—then all this has been good.