The Motivation To End Pain

Every human being has the right to be happy. Every person is born with that right. We can be - and are - as happy as we will allow.

And yet when we look around us, we see so many people who claim no happiness at all. Or if they do, it seems so fleeting; so elusive. Being happy and content seems like trying to catch a scared butterfly with your bare hands.

Every human being is born with the inherent right and the ability to feel the full range of emotion. We have the ability to feel anything we want. Or at least we did at one time.

Unfortunately, we often end up in a hole; feeling nothing but misery. Why is that? Why would we take the greatest human gift of all - the ability to think and feel whatever we want - and basically throw that gift away?

Well, it takes time to be miserable. It takes a lot of effort. It takes a certain kind of giving up that often started a long time ago. Circumstances beat us down, and it almost always starts in childhood.

Usually, we give up due to the 'pounding' we get as children. That's where it begins. We really do take a pounding - from parents and teachers and so many others who endured their own pounding when they were young.

It's because of the patterns we formed at an early age. Patterns of thought and feeling; patterns of belief and attitude. Patterns of 'the way life is'.

Beliefs were formed long before you even knew what the word 'belief' meant. Beliefs paved the road for your direction in life. Beliefs set the stage. They defined the boundaries.

Choices, on the other hand, are like the steering wheel. They come after those early beliefs. They *can be* the escape from errant patterns. Unfortunately, they usually end up reinforcing those painful patterns instead.

Many have chosen to not make any more choices or decisions than absolutely necessary for survival. Even down to the most mundane decisions of what to eat for supper.

We don't realize that practicing making choices and decisions - even minor ones - will strengthen our ability to choose and decide. So when it comes time to make major choices and decisions we'll be better equipped. Then our choices and decisions will have impact. Because we've exercised the muscle of choice.

Then choices and decisions have a force of energy behind them that work almost like magic to change things with less effort on our part. A powerful choice provides the need for less effort and much less struggle. One powerful choice can change your life.

But what's the basic problem in all this? Because, sure, we HAVE been led down the path of misery by the reasons already mentioned: an errant world imposing its will on us when we were a blank slate.

But it doesn't have to stay that way. We can still begin to start exercising our power of choice. Right now. Today.

So what's the basic problem? Even beyond a lack of knowing how to change things?

It's this: we develop a certain level of comfort in our misery. We're comfortable with our pain. And we'd rather be in pain than to be uncomfortable.

That's often why we don't change. Because at least we know our pain. It's familiar. And change is uncomfortable. And being comfortable holds way more importance than anything else.

Better to be in pain than to be uncomfortable. For a while, anyway.

Usually it's only when pain becomes unbearable do we even BEGIN looking for answers.

What about you? What are you comfortable with right now? What are you willing to endure? How great has the pain become?

We're usually motivated by our pain once it reaches a certain level. Because pain unattended always grows. Eventually it becomes too much, and then we're FORCED to act.

The problem is, you can reach a point where it's too late to change. The pain can become so strong that no matter what you do, you can't end it. And you'll never know where that point is, until you've passed it.

It's like falling through the ice. It's like breaking a glass. You can't just make things right because now you're motivated; now you 'really want to'.

Pain can break you.

The time to act is now. Risk being uncomfortable. Dare to take a stand. Move in the direction of your discomfort.

There's an unstated law that says: the more uncomfortable you're willing to be today, the less pain you'll have to endure tomorrow. Will you risk being uncomfortable? That's the real question.

Can you afford not to?