Stop Making Pain Worse

One day, in retrospect, the years of struggle will strike you as the most beautiful.

Sep 09, 2025

P.S: Most people loved the entries on How to Deepen Your Friendships, Part I, Part II & Part III. Also check out the entries on How To Deal With Toxic People & How to Prevent and Overcome Burnout. Happy reading!

*Night Navy with Burning Ships*, by Marcus Larson (1825–1864)

“It is morning somewhere or other now, and it will be morning here again tomorrow. Good times and bad times and all times pass over.”- Thomas Bewick, Vignettes

"Pain is neither unbearable nor unending, as long as you keep in mind its limits and don't magnify them in your imagination."- Marcus Aurelius

Being the doctor on-call sometimes sucks- your phone is blowing up most of the time, there’s an emergency here, 4 new admissions just arrived, for some reason your tummy has decided to hurt, and before you know it, it’s already morning- you gave up having some decent sleep at 3:30am when the convulsive patient started getting delirious. And you have to do it all over again the next day. I’ve often found that the remedy to making this all bearable is to just not make it worse.

The key to endure anything uncomfortable is not making things harder than they already are, by piling on frightful, catastrophic thoughts and emotions. When something you don’t like happens, feel what you have to feel, but remember you have two choices; accept it and adapt, or resist it and suffer twice. For if you look at the bigger picture, most of what weighs on you today won’t matter in a few months. You’ll have adjusted, found a way through, and maybe even turned it into an advantage. It’s as Sigmund Freud said, “one day, in retrospect, the years of struggle will strike you as the most beautiful.” So why complain or grumble about the pressure and fatigue? Doesn’t the resistance only make it harder to do what you need to do?

You can even learn to love difficulties. Pain introduces you to your strengths. It gives you the chance to practice virtue in real time. And that kind of growth feels better than anything money or status can buy- you’re confident you can survive anything fate throws at you. After being tested and passing, you’re sure you’ll always find your way back to the heights of your destiny. There’s no sense in piling fear and disorder onto something that already hurts. Instead, rise to it. Face it with your head high, your butt unclenched. Treat life’s craziness with equanimity. Laugh at it when you can. Have fun where you can. Life is good, and being alive to feel both joy and pain is itself a gift.

Everything mostly depends on how you take what happens. Stress can make you stronger or it can destroy you. Courage and promptness, the health and vitality of your spirit, matter more than your habitus. Don’t drag your feet. Don’t resist like a horse driving a thorn deeper into its hoof with every kick. Start the work, bear it well, and you’ll see that most of the suffering was all in your head. As Marcus Aurelius said, it’s “disgraceful: for the soul to give up when the body is still going strong.” Don’t betray yourself for nothing. Or at least ensure what you’re betraying yourself for, is worth it.

This is a picture of my journal from 3 years ago. The words helped me write today’s entry. Time passes by so fast.

Pain is natural, mistakes are natural, even insecurity is natural to being human. But complaining adds nothing to this nature of life. What solves your problems is your response. Aim your attention toward what’s useful. Accept everything as part of your training. Even love it for the wisdom it teaches- smile because you’ll use it later, you won’t be caught stranded, because as Marcus Aurelius said, this life is warfare, and a journey far from home- just when you think you’ve caught your lucky break, your sister could get cancer.

You already have the capacity to endure a lot. That’s why you can choose goals that seem impossibly high and work toward them- deep down your unconscious already knows this, the trail you’ve followed up to now confirms this. You were born to do work that requires pressure, hard work, and obstacles. They’re just features of the life you’ve chosen- it’s meaningful that way. And when the worst comes, you’ll be fine- you’re well equipped to handle it all. Because now you know nothing could have been more fitting than what the gods- or fate- placed before you. Epictetus adds,

“When trouble comes, think of yourself as a wrestler whom God, like a trainer, has paired with a tough young buck. For what purpose? To turn you into Olympic-class material.”

The real danger is neither pain nor death. Your greatest enemy is caving in before the body does. Giving up in spirit. That’s the only way a person truly destroys themselves. Don’t let that happen. Don’t waste energy convincing yourself whether something is “good” or “bad.” Just accept it, smile at it, and keep going in the right direction. If you bear what most people don’t have the strength to withstand, because they lack the requisite wisdom and attitude, because they lack a purpose for their suffering- they’re just going through the motions or just doing the bare minimum, you’ll find profound happiness and success in your life and respect will come to you even more easily.

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