I find your first anecdote quite interesting. It speaks of a much larger fallacy: the convention of using rewards to make ourselves feel better in an emotional trough. I watched Eric Edmeades once speak on this topic. If our go-to behavior when we feel bad is to do the things we enjoy, in an understandably naive attempt to feel better, are we not reinforcing the same behavior that got us there in the first place? Although far from a full-fledged behavioral theory, I think this idea is worth contemplating.
On a different note, something my yoga teacher once said really struck me. His claim was that when we adopt a “no pain, no gain” attitude, we condition our success and happiness on suffering, and do not allow ourselves to experience the full extent of life’s pleasures. (Not hedonistic pleasures, but ones of the heart — whatever that means to you.) I know Alan Watts talks about these ideas as well — the fact that you can suffer immensely and achieve unimaginable things, but none of them would bring you closer to your true self — although I cannot seem to find the source I am thinking of right now. In adopting these “alternative” perspectives, it seems almost foolish that we should ever condition our happiness on suffering.
After that conversation, I realized that in focusing on pain as the unit of effort, as you say, I lose the ability to focus on the effort itself. In this sense, effort does not imply suffering, but merely the act of doing something. I cannot nurture deep focus when my mind is constantly refreshing my perception of pain and optimizing for it. (“Perception” here might be key.)
The predominance of this mindset might be the result of a simple failure to distinguish between “progress often requires pain” and “pain leads to progress”. It might also be a much deeper issue with predominant cultural archetypes and expectations. An interesting question to consider, thank you for starting this conversation.
I find your first anecdote quite interesting. It speaks of a much larger fallacy: the convention of using rewards to make ourselves feel better in an emotional trough. I watched Eric Edmeades once speak on this topic. If our go-to behavior when we feel bad is to do the things we enjoy, in an understandably naive attempt to feel better, are we not reinforcing the same behavior that got us there in the first place? Although far from a full-fledged behavioral theory, I think this idea is worth contemplating.
On a different note, something my yoga teacher once said really struck me. His claim was that when we adopt a “no pain, no gain” attitude, we condition our success and happiness on suffering, and do not allow ourselves to experience the full extent of life’s pleasures. (Not hedonistic pleasures, but ones of the heart — whatever that means to you.) I know Alan Watts talks about these ideas as well — the fact that you can suffer immensely and achieve unimaginable things, but none of them would bring you closer to your true self — although I cannot seem to find the source I am thinking of right now. In adopting these “alternative” perspectives, it seems almost foolish that we should ever condition our happiness on suffering.
After that conversation, I realized that in focusing on pain as the unit of effort, as you say, I lose the ability to focus on the effort itself. In this sense, effort does not imply suffering, but merely the act of doing something. I cannot nurture deep focus when my mind is constantly refreshing my perception of pain and optimizing for it. (“Perception” here might be key.)
The predominance of this mindset might be the result of a simple failure to distinguish between “progress often requires pain” and “pain leads to progress”. It might also be a much deeper issue with predominant cultural archetypes and expectations. An interesting question to consider, thank you for starting this conversation.