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Welcome! I’m Dr. Larry Iverson, our topic today is Energize Your Life – Use your Brain for a Change. I’m going to talk about central elements to running your brain more effectively and achieving what you desire easier and faster in the process.

Pleasure & Pain Drivers

A matter of months ago it was reported in the news that four boys, aged 13 to 16, attacked a homeless man while he slept. They beat him so severely he died. On the opposite end of that coin, there’s Mother Teresa of India. She lived her life in such a way that she spent all of her time assisting people in poverty to help them in the situation they were in. To assist the unfortunate, the starving masses.

There’s also people like Donald Trump, who really only thinks about himself versus somebody like Bill Gates, who is spending a significant portion of his and Warren Buffett’s fortune to help eradicate disease and help the entire planet.

Why do these people behave as they do? It’s because of the pain and pleasure principle. Everything we do, we do for one of two reasons; to get pleasure or to avoid pain. These are the basic driving forces that shape all aspects of our life. These are the drivers of human existence.

The reason you work the job you work, the reason you have the hobbies you do and gave up the other ones, the reason you have the family you have, the reason you have children or do not have children, the sports that you choose to play or not play, the books you read, the movies you go to, the exercise programs you do or avoid doing are all the result of pain and pleasure.

Using the forces of pain and pleasure will allow you to bring lasting positive change to your life. If you don’t use this you’re caught up in having to live by reaction instead of by proactiveness.

Have you ever procrastinated? Why? Because on some level the thing that you are stalling on doing is more painful, more frustrating, or more scary, or perhaps harder than not doing it. Even if you know you’ll be in trouble if you don’t do it, the biggest pain wins. If doing it is more painful, you procrastinate. If the repercussions of not doing it are more painful then you will take action and quit procrastinating.

There are probably more times where you procrastinated doing something so long, that the pain or the pressure of not doing it got so large, that you finally took action. The pain of inaction grew greater than the pain of procrastination so you moved.

Do you remember the process of dating, or perhaps you are in the process of dating. Whether you’re male or female there is both pain and pleasure associated in the midst of dating. It is human nature to want to share our lives with another person. Not necessarily get married even, just have a companion we can enjoy our life with.

There’s pre-dating pain, there’s the pain of being alone a lot. You don’t have somebody to play, share and do things with. You miss having discussions of interest to you. You have a lack of sex. All the bills sit in your lap; you don’t have somebody to share the expenses with so to speak.

The pleasure of pre-dating is not having to be accountable to anyone. You don’t have to consider anyone else before you decide to do something or go take action on it. You could be a slob if you feel like it. You could watch shows you like to watch when you like to watch them. You get to keep the remote control to yourself; you don’t have to share it. So there is also pleasure in the pre-dating process.

Then in dating there’s both pain and pleasure. In dating the pain is how do you look? Do you look great? Do you not look so hot? What’s it like? Do you like being evaluated? Probably not a lot. What about bad breath, has that ever happened to you? Have you been around somebody with that? That can be a painful experience.

What about somebody with a different perspective than you who likes to challenge you or likes to get in arguments? Perhaps there’s anxiety of being asked out or asking someone out, it could be either way. Well what if they don’t like you? What if they do like you? It could be pain either way.

The pleasure of dating is feeling connected. Laughing, having a good time, being loved, sex, sharing fun things, going new places you don’t usually go to, seeing stuff you don’t see all the time, learning new things, having an experience which is new and unique.

Again, there is both pain and pleasure in nearly all life experiences. And in most cases once again, the biggest pain wins. If being alone is more painful you will do whatever you need to do to go find somebody else to be with. If on the other hand, being alone is not as painful as the thought of having to go ask somebody out or getting asked out then you’re not going to take action; you will stay alone. So either way, the pain or the pleasure, you’ve got to think about it because that’s what rules our lives.

(to be continued…)

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