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Pain will always be part of your success story . . .

“Pain has its own noble joy, when it starts a strong consciousness of life, from a stagnant one.” ~John Sterling

Life is painful.

Are you alive right now? Is your heart beating? Then welcome to life, and welcome to pain.

That sounds pessimistic, but it’s the truth. Everyone will feel pain in life. No one avoids it, because it’s part of being a living thing and, more importantly, a part of being human.

The question is not whether you will feel pain. The real question, and a deciding factor in how your life works out, is your relationship with pain.

Is it a conscious one, or is it an unconscious one?

Is it deliberate, or is it reactionary?

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Pain has two faces. Which one do you see?

Life will bring pain regardless of what you do. If you try to avoid pain, a greater pain will find you later. There is no escape from it, for it is part of what shapes us. It’s not just in the things that hurt us:

Pain permeates everything that makes us grow

What are you here for? Why are you alive? What do you want? And how will you use or not use pain to get there? Will you let it be your enemy or your friend? A stumbling block or a guide?

Pain can either be an end or a beginning:

• One person puts off their dream of writing a book because they can’t stand the painful fear of failure — only to be confronted ten years later with the pain of having not done it.
• Another person goes for it — and slogs through the painful, tedious process of crafting a work with their own hands. But once it’s done, the seeds that the pain planted blossom into the joy of accomplishment.

The question we should ask ourselves is not how we can avoid pain, but how we can embrace the ones that will help us.

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How you can use pain to guide your life . . .

“We must embrace pain and burn it as fuel for our journey.” ~Kenji Miyazawa

Whatever pains you’re feeling now, stop, clear your head, and ask yourself:

• Is this a pain that I will smile about later?
• Is this a pain that has made me stronger?
• Is this a pain that will bear fruit?
• Or is this a pain that will only grow the longer I prolong its cause?

Everything we do, as Tony Robbins aptly said, is directed in part by our innate drive to avoid pain and pursue pleasure. There is immediate pain and immediate pleasure, and likewise there is deferred pain and deferred pleasure. What drives your decisions?

• Immediate pain is the easiest to habitually flee from — and yet the most important one not to flee.
• Deferred pain is easy to ignore — and yet is the last thing we ought to be blind to.
• Immediate pleasure is alluring and easy.
• Deferred pleasure requires discipline.

Most people fall for what is immediate. Most people are slaves to quick fixes that turn sour in the belly the next morning, or next month, or next year. Pain can be either a scary whip that keeps you where you are or less, or a tempering flame through which you get stronger, harder, better, bigger, and so on . . .

Pain is not your enemy. Pain is a tool, and you can be its master.

Too many people let pain master them.

Some pains are not useful. The pain of a cancer, or some other fatal disease, is not something that one can really smile about — though even in such suffering, one can find wisdom. But what I’m referring to are the pains that all of us face, young and old, healthy and unhealthy: the pains of growth versus the pains of staying the same.

• The pains of pursuing a dream versus not pursuing a dream.
• The pain of starting that business of your dreams versus the pain of never trying.
• The pain of hitting the gym at 5AM before work versus the pain of getting out of shape.
• The pain of raising a child versus the pain of wishing you’d done so when you’re eighty.
• The pain of eating that salad versus the pain after that Big Mac sinks in.
• The pain of breaking the shackles of your comfort zone versus the pain of never testing its boundaries . . .

How we handle these choices, how we determine which pains we will tolerate in our lives, is one of the major forces that shapes our destinies — and most people have no idea that they’re doing it all wrong.

You don’t have to.

The first step is to simply understand that you are in control, not pain. You have the power to harness it. You have the power to use your drive for pleasure and you aversion to pain to your advantage.

By anticipating deferred pain instead of being blinded by immediate pain.

By anticipating deferred pleasure that will come through mastering a painful trial.

By knowing that you have the infinite potential to harness who and what you are — and direct your life to ends no one else but you can accomplish.

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Pain is inevitable, but a good life isn’t . . .

“We must all suffer from one of two pains: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret. The difference is discipline weighs ounces while regret weighs tons.” ~Jim Rohn

A life well-lived is determined in part by our relationship with pain. Do we shoulder the pain of our disciplines and effort? Or do we submit to the pain of regret? Do we let our baser instincts pull us left and right, or do we harness them and use them to make us stronger?

As echoed by Gustavo Razzetti in his article on pain and learning, how we think about pain affects everything, and the pain of learning itself can blossom into a unique kind of joy . . .

How will you face pain? How will you think about it? How will you react to it?

Tomorrow, we will face pain. Something will hurt for both of us — and that’s okay. That pain may later result in joy . . .

Depending on how we handle it.