September 23, 2011
All people take different paths and make different decisions in life but it seems that most people fall into these four categories of pain and pleasure…
1. Pain now Pain later- An example of this would be living off of minimum wage, living paycheck to paycheck and ultimately never taking your life in a different direction
2. Pleasure now Pleasure later -An example of this would be growing up with money, having a large inheritance or winning the lottery
3. Please now Pain later – An example of this would be the mortgage industry or getting laid off from your job that you’ve been successful at for years and having to start all over. Or perhaps college grads who decide to put off really working hard in their 20s and wait till they’re “done partying” to find their “perfect job” that they have no experience for; would also fall into this category
4. Pain no Pleasure later – An example of this would be working really hard for a few years for that really big promotion or for the opportunity to do what you want. So starting out in entry level and working your way up. Studying really hard in college for your masters. Going to law school or med school. Working really hard now so that you won’t have to later.
People are either going to be motivated away from pain or towards pleasure. But it seems that in these categories there are only two forms of pain, the pain of discipline and the pain of regret. Let’s take a look at working out for example. If you set a goal to work out in the morning and you decide to press snooze on your alarm, you would be left with the pain of regret all day long. If you decided to actually get up and work out you would have that pain of discipline maybe 1-2 hours but you would feel great about your decision the rest of the day.
Which one is worse?
It seems that there’s always going to be pain somewhere when it comes to decisions people make in life. Would you rather have pleasure now pain later? Or would you rather pay now and play later?
Either way you’re going to have to pay…
