I wrote about pain yesterday because of some physical problems that I am going through presently. I thought I would repost a blog I wrote several years ago on a long bicycle trip on the same subject. 

A bicycle is an instrument of pain; the Seat makes your butt hurt, the handlebars make your hands, wrists, and neck hurt, the peddles make your feet hurt, and the whole bicycle makes your legs burn. Why would anybody in their right mind choose to expose their body for 8 to 10 hours a day to such a machine of pain? I played various sports in High School and College, and the training and practice sessions were intense and hard and brought a lot of pain. I remember guys stopping and throwing up in a garbage can as we ran the bleachers in the gym. Many friends chose not to participate in sports because it was too hard. The coaches repeatedly quoted several mottos to quote to us: “No pain, no gain,” and “Pain is the gas peddle or the brake pedal in our life; we choose.” I hear some people say of themselves, “I have a low threshold of pain,” and I wonder if they think that they were born that way and that they are stuck there. Our threshold for pain goes up as we choose to move over the line a little bit, a little bit more, a little bit more, and a little bit more. As our pain threshold goes up, so does our character growth rate and our potential for accomplishment. Pain is not our enemy, nor our friend either, but it is an adversary we compete with. Pain wins if we quit because of it or avoid important choices because of it, but I win if I endure despite it, if I grow because of it, and if I accomplish more as a result of it. The challenge is doing something hard and winning. Someone asked me if I enjoy the pain that bicycling long distances brings, and I responded, “No, I hate the pain, but I love the challenge.”