May I choose not to avoid pain

If an action leads to pain, it is corrected. If an action that gives bad results is relatively painless, it is ignored.

Even though we recognise that our habits will lead to a decline into ill-health, despondency, or disease, since the process is so gradual, and the deadly payoff so long deferred, we see no reason to change them even though we may want to.

Pleasure leads to pain and pain to pleasure in an endless cycle. The goal for most people is to eliminate the pain and experience only pleasure.

Consciousness requires both pain and pleasure to sustain itself and to thrive.

Pain, whether emotion or physical, brings your awareness to the part of you that is painful—in the struggle to understand and alleviate the pain alone there is knowledge.