Plato, Pain and Poker

Pain and pleasure are funny things. No one likes pain and everyone (as far as I know) likes pleasure, but you really can't have one without the other. Think about your right ankle for a minute. It feels fine (hopefully), but its not really giving you pleasure. However, if it was shackled for days with a metal chain that was digging into your skin you'd be feeling pain. When the shackle was taken off you'd feel incredible pleasure. This situation is how Plato starts out his famous work known as The Last Days of Socrates. Socrates makes a very convincing case that pleasure can not really exist without pain. Its the contrast, not the state itself that creates pleasure and its brother, happiness.

It seems to me that Plato must have played poker (or the Greek equivalent). We poker players feel a lot of pain - especially in tournaments. We get so close only to lose to a weak player who makes a bad play so many times. We enter a tournament and lose. We enter another tournament and lose again. But if you play well and don't give up, sooner or later you're going to go deep and eventually win. When that happens, the pleasure is far greater than all that pain we experienced up to that point. Its ecstasy. Its like the gods love us. We feel at one with the universe. OK, maybe that's a bit much. But the point is that all that hardship allows us to feel this high degree of happiness we couldn't otherwise experience.

The same thing occurs with entrepreneurs. You fork out lots of money for a long time to create and build a business. For the longest time you get nothing in return. Roadblocks. Fighting entrenched competition. Fear of losing everything. It ain't for everyone. Its tough. Its stressful. But when you finally get those first customers. You get some positive feedback. You keep improving your product or service, flashes of success suddenly appear. Its a great feeling. I've known one successful entrepreneur who told me, the most important thing in starting a business is persistence. Don't give up. Keep trying to improve your product or service and in the end, you'll be successful. Too many people throw in the towel too early. Don't be afraid of pain. In the end, it's the only way you can feel the triumph of success on a whole other plane.

Stick with it, my friend, and everything will be alright.