The Pain and Pleasure of Making More Money

By Denis Obrien

We all have a pain/pleasure mechanism that is important to our survival. If we feel pain in something we're doing, we stop; if we get pleasure in what we're doing we naturally continue.

A clear example of this is in learning to ride a bike.

When you were learning to ride your first bicycle, of course you fell off a few times. But you quickly learnt that turning the handle bar caused you to fall off which caused pain. The pain taught you the importance of correcting the action of turning the handle bar which caused you to fall of your bike in the first place. Falling off your bike meant pain.

As soon as you managed to keep the handle bar steady and began to effortlessly glide along, ecstatic euphoria was the result. You felt pleasure.

Eventually as you became more skilled at ri ding, you remembered all the actions that led to falling off - pain - and avoided them. You remembered all the actions that lead to pleasure of riding and kept doing them.

In regard to money, you will find that you accept certain sayings, experiences and advice from people who are broke that link pain to having more money and pleasure to having less money.

When you have money, you just think of all the enjoyment you will get, all the things you can buy, do and have. And you remember what it was like when you had no money. So, you spend it.

Later on in life when you try to make more money, you start to fall into the pain and pleasure money trap. You get the feeling that no one will really like you if you have more money. And you will have to work much harder to keep it and you might lose it all. It's not really worth the effort.

So, you stay within the limits of the pain/pleasure system for money. You're constantly torn between wanting to make more money and wanting to spend it.