Why Is This Painful?

Rui Zhi Dong
2 min readJan 27, 2020
Photo by Francisco Gonzalez on Unsplash

The pain is all in your head. If you want to evolve, you need to go where the problems and the pain are. By confronting the pain, you will see more clearly the paradoxes and problems you face. Reflecting on them and resolving them will give you wisdom — Ray Dalio

The next time you experience pain, Ask Yourself, Why Is This Painful?

Instead of feeling frustrated or overwhelmed by the pain, view it as an opportunity for growth.

Pain is a useful signal that there’s something to be learned. The stronger the pain, the more there is to discover.

Certainly it can be challenging to reflect when there’s a lot of pain involved.

Remember as you go through any associated emotional turmoil that you’ll have a lot more to gain if you choose to process it instead of burying it. Journaling in the heat of the moment can help take the sting away.

Pain can be a signal to address some issue at work, in your love life. It can point to unresolved childhood issues. It can reveal insecurities. It can expose false beliefs. It can illuminate your relationship with death.

Once you’ve gone through this process a number of times, it may not necessarily get easier but you may come to find it rewarding.

Embrace pain as a mechanism that triggers the thought, Why Is This Painful?

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Rui Zhi Dong

Entrepreneur and Writer. Working on book, Thinking Questions. Influenced by Charlie Munger, Nassim Taleb, Ray Dalio, Marcus Aurelius, Cicero.