“Life is composed of joys and miseries. They go hand in hand.” –Bhante Gunaratana1
On the ride of life, pain is the price of admission.
We know pain right from birth.
Pain is with us, in ways large and small, every day of our lives. Our discomforts range from the annoying to the agonizing. Embarrassments, mistakes, and failures are inevitable. We must all face unfairness, misfortune, and tragedy.
This, I posit, is not actually a bad thing.
Pain is our oldest companion. And if we can understand what pain makes possible, we could consider it a friend.
Pain teaches.
Pain warns.
Pain remembers.
Pain motivates.
The most painful experiences of my life have also been the most valuable. I wouldn’t be the man I am today were it not for pain.
Not every lesson has to be learned the hard way, but pain is often the price of learning. Sometimes, it’s the physical pain of crashing your bicycle as you learn to ride. More often, it’s the discomfort of being a bumbling beginner. Occasionally, it’s the burning shame of a huge mistake.
The pain in my back and left knee are reminders of a terrible ski fall I once had. They remind me not to take such stupid risks. More importantly, they remind me that every day is a bonus day. There were only two ways I could have come out of that fall: injured or dead. The pain of those injuries was quite literally the price of admission to the rest of my life, so I’m happy to pay it.
You can’t fully live without pain.
Would pleasure feel good if we never experienced discomfort?
Would joy have any meaning if we never knew sorrow?
Could we experience wonder without uncertainty?
Could we have love without the potential for loss?
I think the answer to all those questions is no.
Without discomfort, pleasure offers no release.
Because I have known deep sorrow, I can appreciate profound joy.
Because I embrace uncertainty, I am able to wonder.
To share your life with others is to share in their pain and, perhaps, experience the pain of their loss.
To feel or not to feel?
Some try to avoid pain by numbing themselves.
But this comes at a steep price, as Brené Brown explains: “The problem is … you cannot selectively numb emotion.” When we numb the bad, “we numb joy, we numb gratitude, we numb happiness.”2
You can also protect yourself from pain by avoiding the vulnerability of openness and honesty, uncertainty and risk. But this too has a terrible cost. Vulnerability, Brown’s research shows, is “the birthplace of joy, of creativity, of belonging, of love.”2
To some, stress is pain. But, as Kelly McGonigal defines it, stress is simply what we feel “when something we care about is at stake.”3 To have no stress is to care about nothing, and that’s no way to live.
The lesson here is that we cannot choose what to feel – we can only choose whether or not to feel.
Many people choose inebriation or distraction, avoiding what is real and present and most deeply true. Many people choose to stay small, to hide, rather than risk the pain that the public eye sometimes brings. Some people even want to give up on life entirely because they don’t believe the pain is worth it.
I know.
I used to be one of those people.
Would you give up the good to protect yourself from the bad?
Would you avoid pursuing success to avoid risking failure?
Would you numb all your feelings to avoid pain?
Oh, and before you answer, it’s worth knowing that numbing never really works. Eventually, the pain finds its way to the surface of your consciousness. And when it comes back, it’s worse. You see, the behavior of avoidance sends your brain a message; it’s a way of telling yourself that you can’t handle the pain. So when the pain returns, you suffer even more from it.
Suffering is optional.
One of the core teachings of Buddhism is that, while pain is mandatory, suffering is not.
This is because Suffering = Pain x Resistance. When you resist your pain – avoiding it, numbing it, wishing it would go away, hating it, feeling sorry for yourself – you amplify the suffering it causes. But when you accept your pain, you take away its power to cause suffering.
And for me, at least, knowing that pain is the price of admission helps me accept it.
I’m not suggesting you become a masochist. You’re not supposed to enjoy being ill or injured. But you can learn to see pain for what it is: the price we all have to pay to take this ride we call life.
1Gunaratana, Bhante. Mindfulness in Plain English. Wisdom Publications, 2011. Pg. 91.
2Brown, Brené. “The power of vulnerability.” TEDxHouston. June 2010.
3McGonigal, Kelly. The Upside of Stress: Why Stress Is Good for You, and How to Get Good at It. Avery, 2015.
Chris Loper has been writing about self-improvement and helping busy adults with habit formation since 2017.
He also writes an education blog for parents and students for Northwest Educational Services.
Along with Greg Smith, Chris is the cocreator of Parenting for Academic Success, a series of transformative classes that create empowered parents, confident students, and harmonious families.
His most recent endeavor combines his academic and habit-formation expertise to help students thrive in college. Visit SmartCollegeHabits.com to learn more.
In 2021, Chris published a humorous memoir titled Wood Floats and Other Brilliant Observations, a book that blends crazy stories with practical life lessons.
He lives in Issaquah, WA where he is the owner of South Cove Tutoring.