For me, the main point of the post is that the role of pain is often misunderstood. Compared to the article my perception was actually kind of the opposite: That the people I knew avoided pain more than needed. They saw it as an indication of a lack of success. But the result is the same: The role of pain is often seen either as highly correlated (positively or negatively) with effort or success.
But the pain-space is large and non-uniform. People don’t always mean the same thing with pain. It can be physical harm, exhaustion, stress, mental fatigue or suffering, persistent illness, but also lack of free time or freedom, some tiredness or distraction. It goes from small to large things and people draw the boundary differently. And if you are below that imaginary boundary people don’t call it pain. Don’t even feel or notice it at all. Like an accepted pain set point. Parents who have adjusted to their life as parents typically accept a lot more discomfort as normal than before they had kids. As another poster wrote: The level of physical hurt we (society) accept has changed a lot over time.
And people are different. The OP describes some and is describing me here:
My classmates would sign up for eight classes per semester when the recommended number is five, jigsaw extracurricular activities into their calendar like a dynamic programming knapsack-solver, and then proceed to have loud public complaining contests about which libraries are most comfortable to study at past 2am
(though not the complaining part or about “how many pages they have left … due in three hours”).
I did write a program to fill the calendar with all the most interesting courses. The key here is the most interesting ones. I enjoyed it. I was not stressed. If I was not feeling well or had something else going I would just not attend the class. On the other hand, I didn’t attend parties. These were stressful for me. I couldn’t understand how people could enjoy these. Those seemed to be bad choices.
The upshot for me is is that you can hurt but be happy at the same time. It is pretty common in sports I think. But it also works for mental or psychological stress. My mother called this eustress.
I think that is what Mark Manson means when he writes about what pain can you sustain. I even did an LW poll back then about that question—adding more pain dimensions. What is pain for one person is something that is in the healthy range for another. Note that I am talking about the exact same objective level of hurt or effort. A young athlete clearly can endure much more hurt than an untrained or old or healthwise unlucky person. I remember a post about the acceptable window with some people having a wide range and others barely any non-hurting maneuvering space but can’t find it. I think there should be a conversation about what your healthy and sustainable pain level is.
Brienne Logan gives some advice on figuring our physical pain. But I agree with the OP that we need more guidance on mental pain. Your task is to find ways to be happy with a moderate level of pain.
For me, the main point of the post is that the role of pain is often misunderstood. Compared to the article my perception was actually kind of the opposite: That the people I knew avoided pain more than needed. They saw it as an indication of a lack of success. But the result is the same: The role of pain is often seen either as highly correlated (positively or negatively) with effort or success.
But the pain-space is large and non-uniform. People don’t always mean the same thing with pain. It can be physical harm, exhaustion, stress, mental fatigue or suffering, persistent illness, but also lack of free time or freedom, some tiredness or distraction. It goes from small to large things and people draw the boundary differently. And if you are below that imaginary boundary people don’t call it pain. Don’t even feel or notice it at all. Like an accepted pain set point. Parents who have adjusted to their life as parents typically accept a lot more discomfort as normal than before they had kids. As another poster wrote: The level of physical hurt we (society) accept has changed a lot over time.
And people are different. The OP describes some and is describing me here:
(though not the complaining part or about “how many pages they have left … due in three hours”).
I did write a program to fill the calendar with all the most interesting courses. The key here is the most interesting ones. I enjoyed it. I was not stressed. If I was not feeling well or had something else going I would just not attend the class. On the other hand, I didn’t attend parties. These were stressful for me. I couldn’t understand how people could enjoy these. Those seemed to be bad choices.
The upshot for me is is that you can hurt but be happy at the same time. It is pretty common in sports I think. But it also works for mental or psychological stress. My mother called this eustress.
I think that is what Mark Manson means when he writes about what pain can you sustain. I even did an LW poll back then about that question—adding more pain dimensions. What is pain for one person is something that is in the healthy range for another. Note that I am talking about the exact same objective level of hurt or effort. A young athlete clearly can endure much more hurt than an untrained or old or healthwise unlucky person. I remember a post about the acceptable window with some people having a wide range and others barely any non-hurting maneuvering space but can’t find it. I think there should be a conversation about what your healthy and sustainable pain level is.
BrienneLogan gives some advice on figuring our physical pain. But I agree with the OP that we need more guidance on mental pain. Your task is to find ways to be happy with a moderate level of pain.