Recently, I was thinking about what I, and others, are willing to do to avoid or achieve something. OK, so I didn’t mention taking actions to avoid things in the title, but bear with me.
My questions to you are:
- What are we willing to do to achieve things like better health, romance, more wealth or better relationships with friends and family?
- What are we willing to endure to avoid something, such as becoming unemployed, being criticised by our children or losing financial independence?
Do you find yourself nodding or shaking your head when reading the following examples?
Endurance to attain something
- Commit to someone when you have already found the love of your life, because someone close to you died, and their wish, which you want to honour, was for you to devote yourself to someone different
- Do some deep and difficult work to help you deal with a bereavement because you want to heal and be at peace with it
- Enduring intense physical workouts or training sessions because we want to gain strength
- Tolerating a demanding or toxic work environment because we want to maintain our income and/or clear debts
- Cooking using a restricted list of ingredients because we want to maintain our weight
- Undergoing painful medical treatments or having surgery because we want to recover from a serious illness
- Letting someone pull and crack the body so that the stiffness is released
- Staying up late to revise or work on assignments because we want to attain a specific grade
- Commuting through heavy traffic or long distances daily because we want to gain career opportunities or maintain our income
- Taking bitter or unpleasant-tasting medicine because we want relief from an illness
- Saving money by cutting back on luxuries and entertainment, because we want to increase our financial security for the future
- Reducing travelling by aircraft because we want to feel good about ourselves by not causing harm to the planet
- Reducing travelling by aircraft because we don’t want to harm the planet
- Staying in an unhappy relationship because we want to fit in
- Tolerating criticism or harsh feedback from a mentor or coach because we want to gain personal growth or skill improvement
- Going through the discomfort of dental procedures because we want to avoid losing more teeth
- Not letting our children do certain things because we want to keep them safe
Endurance to avoid something
- Stay away from the love of your life because someone close to you died, and their wish, which you want to honour, was for you to devote yourself to someone else
- Do some deep and difficult work to help you deal with a bereavement because you don’t want to ‘fall apart’ again
- Enduring intense physical workouts or training sessions because we want to avoid losing strength
- Tolerating a demanding or toxic work environment because we want to avoid unemployment or financial hardship
- Cooking using a restricted list of ingredients because we want to avoid gaining weight
- Undergoing painful medical treatments or having surgery because we want to avoid our health from deteriorating further
- Letting someone pull and crack the body to avoid being in more pain and reducing mobility even more
- Staying up late to revise or work on assignments because we want to avoid failing exams
- Commuting through heavy traffic or long distances daily because we want to avoid unemployment
- Taking bitter or unpleasant-tasting medicine because we want to avoid worsening symptoms
- Saving money by cutting back on luxuries and entertainment, because we want to avoid debt
- Tolerating criticism or harsh feedback from a mentor or coach because we don’t want to stand still
- Going through the discomfort of dental procedures because we want to avoid tooth loss or chronic pain
- Not letting our children do certain things because we don’t want them to get into trouble
Why is any of this important?
If we know what we want or don’t want, we will be able to understand our actions and inactions better. In turn, this will help us understand and accept others.
