Let us imagine an example.
A heart patient went to see his doctor for his monthly checkup. The doctor asked, “Are you taking the pills regularly?”. The patient said, “yes, of course, but sometimes I do miss a dose.”. The doctor explained, “If you take this one pill daily at 6AM, you can live your life without any problems. So, please take at the specific time daily”.
During the next visit, he says, “now I am more punctual and don’t skip any dose but forget to take at the specific time.”. This time, the doctor says, “You have already spoiled a lot by not listening to me. Now, you are in a critical stage. If you don’t take this one pill daily at 6 in the morning, you will get a heart attack in the next one hour. Now, think what will happen. He sets an alarm in his mobile to get up at 5.30 Am itself. He also keeps another alarm in his alarm clock as a backup. Not only that, but he gets up daily at 5.30 and is sitting watching the clock to turn 6 and immediately takes the pill, and then may continue his sleep.
Can you recollect any similar examples from your life when you kept on postponing something, and at one breaking point, you had no other choice, and you put all your efforts to finish that job? For example, you need to submit a report to your boss. You kept postponing as you are busy with other things. But, one day your boss says, if ...he….. does not get the report by the next morning, you will be fired from the job. What will happen? The report will be emailed to the boss the previous night itself.
We can learn two things from this and similar examples from our life:
1. That WE WILL DO MORE TO AVOID PAIN THAN WE WILL TO GAIN PLEASURE. That is, it has less impact if someone says “If you do this, your life will be good” whereas the impact will be high when we hear “if you don’t do this, you will lose your job”.
2. It is not the actual pain that drives us, but our fear that something will lead to pain. In the same way, it is not the actual pleasure that drives us, but our belief that somehow taking a certain action will lead to pleasure.
I personally like oil deep-fried snacks a lot, specifically Sattur sev and mixture. Once I had too much of the snack that the next day I had full headache. After a couple of months, again I had a lot. The same day I had a headache. 3rd time I was having the snacks, I was telling myself that I had more snacks today, and I was going to get a headache. The same thing happened. This time the headache lasted for a few days. That was the time I decided to avoid these snack items. Nowadays, even if I take, I take only very little. I am having with full awareness and I know I should not cross the boundary. I could feel the pain in the first time I had the snacks itself. Had I stopped the snacks there itself, I could have avoided additional pains. But I stopped only when the pain became unbearable.
When I narrate this experience, I remember a story. A man moved to a new apartment complex in Chennai. That night, when he was about to go to bed, he heard a dog’s howling sound. He was very tired and slept. The next night also he heard the howling sound. When he heard the same horrible sound for a week, he decided to go and ask the dog’s owner.
He went to the dog owner’s house. He asked, “Why your dog is making so much noise? I am not able to sleep. Do you give enough food at night? What else is the problem for it?. The owner said, “Nothing like that; Come, let me show you.” He took him to the backyard. There were some wooden reapers with small and big nails on them. The owner narrated, “See, since it is winter, the dog sleeps here on the wooden reapers. Whenever the nails hurt, it makes the howling sound.” Immediately, this man asked “if it is hurting, why doesn’t it move away from there? “
The owner said, yes, it is true that it is hurting and paining for the dog. But the pain is only bearable. When it crosses its threshold, when it can't tolerate the hurting pain, then it will move from there. Right now, it is paining…. But not that much warranting a move.
So, Friends, Let us not wait until the pain becomes unbearable or till it reaches our threshold. Let us move the moment you start feeling the ensuing pain. The pain need not necessarily be only physical pain.
The pain can start hurting you on any area of your life:
For example:
You are not able to Lose weight, Quit smoking / Quit alcohol, maintain good Relationships, can't even start thinking about Regular exercise / walking, not able to Get up early, not able to Start a new business, not able to Stop anger, frustration, or procrastinating.
Take action at least the moment you see an upcoming pain in life. Don’t wait for the pain to hurt you so much to take this action.
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