Are Our Lives Governed by a Continuum of Pain and Pleasure?

Have you ever scratched an itchy red rash despite being completely aware that it only makes it worse?  This is a prime example of the law of pain vs. pleasure; that is, our actions are driven by desire to avoid pain and seek pleasure.  Whichever feels more real to us at the moment is the one that causes us to act.  The present itchiness of the rash bothered you more than the possibility of scarring, so you chose to scratch it.

The pain vs. pleasure theory is evident in our natural tendency to choose the short-term reward over long-term benefits.  When something is about to happen soon, it’s more real to us so we act impulsively upon it.  This explains why some people have such difficulty sticking to diets; they get immediate pleasure from the foods they crave and are unable to grasp the pain of ill health with the same clarity because they think it’s still be a ways down the road.

The law even holds true in demonstrations of altruism.  It’s common to donate a few dollars to a local charity because the pleasure of giving outweighs the pain of losing the money.  Some mothers do almost anything for their kids because their emotional connections put the joy of their children ahead of their own well-being.

If our actions define who we are, and our feelings define our actions, then the most successful people should theoretically be those with the strongest desires.  After all, isn’t it usually true that the more you want something, the more likely you’re going to get it?  But there are always exceptions.  Do you ever notice people who seem to attract everything they want in their lives without really trying?  Do these people still follow the same law?

The problem with pain vs. pleasure is that it assumes every action goes through a conscious reasoning process.  It neglects our instinctive actions, the ones that we were born with or are conditioned to perform.  Although many of these subconscious actions still follow the same principles (for example, a child experiencing a traumatic event involving dogs might subconsciously avoid dogs for the rest of their life to avoid pain), some don’t.  For instance, I’m one of the many people with a habit of blinking less when I’m on the computer.  This is bad for my eyes and I know it, but when I’m not consciously thinking about blinking (how poetic), I still do it naturally because it’s just something that ingrained in me.

Through the manipulation of our subconscious behaviour, we can achieve things we’d never thought possible.  By altering these all-powerful habits, these internal scripts in our biological computer, we can evade the law of pain vs. pleasure and hop on the thrilling ride of relentless prosperity.