No Pain No Gain: The pain you feel today will be the strength you feel tomorrow.
Hey! Do you know the story of Mr. Lyadhkhor? The no. 1 lazy guy in the world! Oh! You do not know. Let me tell you his story.
Mr. Lyadhkhor had only one ambition in his life that was to be rich. But he was not ready to do any work to fulfill his ambition in life. For all day long, Mr. Lyadhkhor used to be in the eat sleep repeat mode. The only thing he used to do in between was to pray to God, “Oh god please make me win just a single lottery”.
In this way, after a few years, Mr. Lyadhkhor passed away. When he reached heaven after his death, he complained to God saying, “All I wanted from you in my whole life was to make me rich by making me win a lottery prize. Why didn’t you even granted my single wish?” God replied, “I would have made you win one but you did not even buy a lottery ticket!”
Smart idea 1: Consider pain as just a signal
Just like Mr. Lyadhkhor, many students also do the same thing. Without studying anything, they just keep on praying to God, “Oh God! Please make me get good marks in my exam”. I am sure God must be replying to them, “I would have made you get good marks but you did not write anything in your exam!”
Up to writing in the exam is in our hands. But after that, there are a lot of factors that decide whether you will get good marks or not. Your paper can be lost, or it can be handover to such an examiner who just got divorced from his wife. And imagine with that mental condition he is checking your paper.
So, that which is not in your control if we pray for that to God then that makes sense. But, that which is totally in your control, like buying a lottery ticket or writing in the exam, if you don’t even want to do that much also, then it’s hopeless. Simple equation, no pain no gain.
Now the question is we all know that fact “no pain no gain”. But still, why do we always want to avoid the pain? The answer is very simple because the pain feels bad. It can be physical pain or psychological pain. Both trigger a bad feeling inside us. That’s why we always want to avoid pain.
Now the next question is, why does the pain feel bad? It’s because, in our belief system, it has been by default registered that pain means bad and pleasure means good. Now let’s put a question mark after this belief also.
Suppose you unconsciously put your hands on fire and there is no pain or any kind of distress in you and after some time when you finally notice your hands you see it’s all burnt up. Will that be good?
Likewise, suppose you get failed in something and there is no emotional pain inside you. Then will you strive to improve yourself for the next time? So if you think a little deeper you can realize that although when we feel pain at that time it feels bad, actually it is good for us. So we can say that pain is not bad actually, it is good.
Now if you think a little more deeply, you will realize that pain is not even good or bad. It is just a signal which warns us that something wrong is going on out there, please pay your attention to it. For example, you have put your hands on fire remove it at once or it will get burnt up. Or you have failed in your exam, so find out what was your fault and try to improve on that otherwise you may fail again.
Smart idea 2: Always think in long term
Suppose you start doing exercise and you are having a lot of pain in your whole body at the beginning. Because of the pain, you are not able to move freely for 2 to 3 days. So you decide to stop doing exercise. Is it a good decision or a bad decision?
Or suppose you have exams knocking at the door. So you finally decide to study. But after reading 2 or 3 question answers you start to feel psychological pain and you decide to get up from studying. Is it a good decision or a bad decision?
On the other hand, when someone smoke for the first time in life, it feels so good in one’s head, that one’s mind becomes completely blank and one has a fresh feeling. So one decides to smoke regularly. Is it a good decision or a bad decision?
So you can see clearly that after having a feeling of pain or pleasure when we evaluate it thinking in the short term, we always choose the wrong decision. But suppose if you can replace your habit of always thinking in short term into always thinking in long term, then after start doing exercise when you will feel pain in your whole body, you will realize that instead of that pain if I continue doing exercise then it will help me, in the long run, to always stay fit and healthy.
Or although I do not feel like studying, if I maintain discipline and study accordingly then I will get good marks in the exam. And although it may feel good to smoke now, in the long run, it can be the cause of my death.
Smart idea 3: Learn and apply
Every pain in our life teaches us something. Like the pain, we feel after putting our hands-on fire teaches us that we should keep our hands away from fire. The pain we feel after a breakup teaches us to look after the mistakes that we have made in that relationship and to make sure that the next time it will not be repeated. The pain that we feel on the next day after going to the toilet for seven times due to eating like a horse in a wedding reception, teaches us that we should always eat to feed our stomach, not our mind.
But the problem is most of the time we miss the lessons that we should learn from the pain. Or if we do learn the lessons, still we do not apply them in our life. We make the same mistake again and again.
Now, if I sum up this whole article, whenever you are feeling some pain in your life, it may be psychical or psychological, what you need to follow to get the most out of it is,
1. Do not look at your pain as good or bad. Instead, consider it as just a signal.
2. Evaluate the consequences in the long term. Instead, of the short term. And finally,
3. What the pain is trying to teach you, learn it, and apply it in your life.
Always remember, “The pain you feel today will be the strength you feel tomorrow”.
At last, a little request to you, please share this article with your friends and family so that you can help to make someone’s life a little better. Thanks for reading. More wisdom, more solution, better life!
