Athletes say “no pain, no gain.” My experience is that this truth applies in almost all human endeavors. Particularly those where you are trying to make something better. As you work to make it better, it gets worse.
Cleaning your garage, organizing your files, de-piling your desk or improving your cardio health. The biggest pain you will experience is getting started. Of course, this is after the extended discomfort you’ve enjoyed while putting it off, hoping it will go away or pretending you don’t need to do it.
My face is a mess right now. Red, flaking, sore and even scabbing. Why? Because after years of ignoring the sun damage, I realized (with the help of my dermatologist) that I’d better do something now or deal with skin cancer later.
So, after 10 days of flourouracil cream treatments, my forehead and nose look like the hull of an old fishing boat. I’m in hiding until my next appointment when we hopefully begin the regenerating moisturizers. Before the skin could get healthy, it had to look like this.
“It’s what you do when you don’t have to,” Floyd Wickman once told me, “that will determine what you become when you can no longer help it.” So true. Garages, relationships, client databases, health and so many other important things require regular maintenance. If you don’t do the right things along the way, you’ll have to deal with the pain eventually. Pay me now or pay me later.
The longer we wait, the greater the price we pay. Sometimes we can put things off way too long. Then, we get to deal with divorces, heart attacks, bankruptcies and skin cancer – really big pains. That’s when we ask the “why didn’t I just” questions.
So, no remorse here, just a reminder to all of us – get at it before it gets at you. Go for the prevention and you won’t need the cure. Worse is the first step to better. Feel the pain, get the gain.
