The Painful Truth You Didn't Know About Our Pursuit of Pleasure
In high school, my entire identity was wrapped up in football. It consumed me. There was nothing I wouldn’t do to get better, faster, and stronger. As I entered my sophomore year, I had an opportunity to impress the varsity coaches—less with my raw athletic talent (which was lacking), but with my commitment and drive to succeed. The coaches hosted a voluntary preseason morning workout over the course of one week. Five days at 5 am for one hour. To this day, it stands as the single most intensive workout I have ever experienced. So intense that after only 30 min into the first session, I left partially digested Cheerios on the gym floor. Despite the pain, I pressed on. I endured because I had an end goal. I knew the prize on the other side—the admiration and attention of the varsity coaches—was worth the suffering.
I wish that were the norm for most people or me. Instead, the truth is that we would much rather avoid pain, avoid suffering, or discomfort. We tend to be drawn towards immediate gratification and pleasure instead of the long-term benefits that come from facing our fears and pushing through difficult moments. Unfortunately, this leaves us with a skewed view of the world and prevents us from reaching our true potential. We live in a world that is in constant pursuit of pleasure and avoidance of pain. We work so hard to avoid the pain that we engage in behaviors that become a magnet for more pain. In other words, our avoidance of pain actually creates more pain. That might be hard to believe but think for a moment about how you try to avoid pain.
Social Media. Endless scrolling to distract ourselves from something else. Most Americans check their phones up to 352 times daily to check social media platforms, which is up from 96 times a day in 2019.
Food. How many of us use food to escape some part of our lives, causing us pain? Eating has a unique way of providing us with comfort and making us feel safe.
Alcohol. Far too many of my college days were spent drowning my sorrows and worry inside the bar's dusty, darkened walls.
Our Work. Yes, we need to work. But when does work become the escape?
Sports. One end can be a healthy and enjoyable hobby. But when does it become a damaging addiction?
Even our relationships can create more harm than good, despite our best intentions.
Anything we can get our hands on to numb the pain and lessen our discomfort. But the result is likely nothing you expected. The more we try and numb the pain, the less we become keyed into our emotions, thoughts, and behaviors. Our bodies are always naturally searching for a balance between pain and pleasure. So the buzz we feel from alcohol is balanced with the hangover we suffer later. The dopamine rush from social media or gaming is balanced with the low that follows and the desire for more.
We create a nearly unbreakable cycle: We anticipate experiencing a little pain, so we seek out alcohol, social media, food, drugs, etc., to remove the pain—but only temporarily. Eventually, it wears off. So we seek more. But in the end, those behaviors create more pain. So we chase more pleasure. You see where this is going.
RemedyLIVE’s marriage and family therapist, Richele Groeneweg, reminds us to consider the buffalo.
“Buffalo can sense when a storm is coming. But instead of running from the storm and seeking shelter. They run into it. It might sound crazy, but they minimize the time they experience discomfort.”
Now I know we are all smarter than buffalo, yet we are running from the pain. And as a result, creating more anxiety because we are running from that pain. Self-medicating, hoping the storm will let up. But it doesn’t. The storm just keeps chasing us.
In high school, I ran to the challenge and the pain rather than running from or avoiding it. Pain in life is inevitable. You can’t avoid it. Instead of trying to turn from it, what if we allowed the pain to be our teacher? There is something we can learn from the suffering we experience. We can be like the buffalo and run straight into it.
