Was It Worth the Pain?

Success is like any other high in life. It is a rush. It may be as simple as getting the closest parking space. Ahhh, that little rush of victory! And all it took was driving around the lot three times.

Naturally, bigger goals get a bigger rush. They also usually require more pain.

But succeeding makes the pain seem unimportant. If that were not true, would women ever have a second child? They know the birth will be painful, and still they want to bring that second life into the world. As a father, I am grateful for that. After all, the births don’t cause men any pain. (We feel the pain later, when those babies have grown into moody teenagers.)

As sports fans, we celebrate when our team wins the pennant. But we can’t possibly feel as good as the players do - because we didn’t experience the pain it took for them to get there. I have never heard a winning athlete say "It wasn’t worth it. The practices were too hard. I was away from my family too much. Keep the trophy. I don’t want it." No. They cry, they leap into the air, they blow kisses, and the team members hug each other in the sheer exhilaration of that winning moment.

At the moment of success, we forget the cost.

Do we ever go too far? Or pay too high a price? You bet we do. Because we are flawed and sometimes ignore things we shouldn’t. In relationships, for example. Any joy in a success after a break-up will be tempered by the loss. But there will still be joy.

The ideal is to achieve success without paying too high a price. The person who figures that out gets the biggest rush in the end.

[Ed. Note: You can speed up the time it takes to succeed with the help of a Personal Life Coach. "Hire" your own for $1.25 a day right here. [link to TSAP] ETRgoalsetting

Author and businessman John L. Herman Jr. ("Herman"), who has owned more than 20 companies, has become an expert on why businesses fail. The above article was excerpted with permission from Hermanisms: Axioms for Business and Life. [link] ETRgoalsetting For more information about Herman and his business writing, please visit Hermanisms.com.]

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