What pain have you chosen to have? For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. This holds true even in life issues and decisions. In the book Not giving a f**k by Mark Mason, he argues that each decision we make is accompanied by an equal and opposite pain. If you choose to fall in love, you must be prepared to put up with heartaches, letdowns, and that awkward silence that comes with it every now and then.
If you choose to occupy the corner office, you must be prepared to put up with endless work, late nights, people issues, and much travel. If you chose to start a family, you must be prepared to go through sleepless nights, teenage friction, heartaches, and extra expenses. If you want a great body, you must contend with regular, possibly vigorous exercise, muscle pain, extra hours of working out and selecting your diet properly. Want to get into business? You must be ready to deal with lots of uncertainty, and take risks, with the possibility of losing some even as you win some.
Most of us want to have the corner office and earn all the money but we don’t want to put in the work, we don’t want to face and make tough decisions, we don’t want to travel immensely, or are not willing to give up the inputs required for that office.
As human beings, we tend to focus only on the rosy side of issues but tend to forget the sometimes obvious equal and opposite problems that come with the choices we make. When you say yes to one thing, you say no to another. Mark talks about choosing the pain you are happy to contend with. Each decision has a problem or pain point. Having no money comes with the problem of not being able to do some things while having a lot of money comes with the need to protect it, a problem you did not have before. By solving one problem, you create another.
It is therefore important to look at the problems you’ll be creating by making certain choices. Let the problem you are choosing, be a problem you are willing to solve or to live with.
I have personally chosen to write a weekly blog and with it comes the pain of needing to read books, take a few extra courses, speak with people, read other writer’s blogs, listen to podcasts, and despite all this, I sometimes still get a writers’ block and struggle to get the next article out in good time. Yes, this week was one of them 
. But it is a pain I have chosen for myself; thankfully, it is a pain I am willing to go through over and over, even as I improve.
I also believe that the current high rate of relationship dissatisfaction and divorce (mostly I dare say), is because we want a happy marriage where your significant other agrees with you entirely, you love each other’s friends and families, you make the money that you wish to make and share it like you wish it to be shared, your spouse and children behave the way you’ve envisioned them to behave and everything is working as we wish. But we have forgotten that a happy marriage comes with equally opposite forces that require some pain, problems, and compromises that need to be made.
Perhaps we need to move our focus from what we want to have or to do, to what pain we are willing to go through. A pain or problem that you chose for yourself is usually an easier pain to handle than a pain that has been chosen for you by others. Some important questions you should ask yourself henceforth when making life decisions can include questions like;
- Am I willing to put in the time to achieve this?
- Am I willing to learn?
- What problems will this decision come with?
- What do I need to give up? Vis a vis what will I gain?
- Do I really need this? Or is it a societal requirement that I might not be in agreement with?
- How prepared or willing am I to handle the pain that comes with this gain?
- Am I willing to go through the emotions that come with this choice?
If you can respond to the answers positively and confidently, then perhaps it’s a pain you’re willing to go through and therefore it is the right pain for you.
Let’s become purposeful in choosing our pain, won’t we?
