As I stared up into the sterile light and felt the slipperiness of pale bluish-green rubber on my lips and the scratch of instruments of dental torture on my teeth, it occurred to me, Hey. Today is my day to post on the PAN. I thought I should use the opportunity of my captivity to dream up the most intelligent and provoking post yet to grace the blog. Unfortunately, as the nice lady jabbed my gums, all I could think of was “Pain is Gain”.

This is actually a peculiar thing. People will go through all sorts of pains — physical and otherwise — for gain.
Take, for example, girls. Maybe this is not the case for everyone, but if I want to do my hair up to look nice, it hurts. Gravity and long hair don’t make cheerful bedfellows, as they say. (Or actually they don’t. But it would be funny if they did.) But I keep it, and I put it up, despite the headaches and stuff, because I gain a good appearance.

This works with things other than hair. Think of maybe the person who gets up at 5 every day, even though he hates getting up early, to go to work because he wants to have a certain job that brings a certain salary or image or whatever else that job might bring him.

Think of the student who piles on credits and extracurricular activities so as to appear smart and studious and to “get ahead in life”, even though he knows that no employer ever will care whether or not he took Art of Asia.

And of course, to go back to where I started from, there’s the issue of dentics and orthodontics and cosmetic surgery. That’s real physical pain with gain that is also (purely?) physical.

Of course, none of these things are wrong in themselves (I should hope not, since I used myself as an example in two). But where is the line? At what point is the gain worth the pain? At what point does seeking personal enrichment become setting up stumbling blocks?
Here is a suggestion: perhaps many of the little pains and discomforts and stresses we complain about are actually self inflicted.  Perhaps even most.