Pain

I had a friend in high school who cut his fingers of with a skill saw. Well, let me reiterate. He cut his middle and ring fingers to the bone, right where they connect to the hand. His fore finger (the pointer) he cut all the way off where is connects to the hand. It was just barely hanging. Luckily he iced it within seconds and the an amazing medical team were able to sew his two back together. The fore finger had to have a pin and a vein from his wrist grafted in and a bunch of other stuff. So he was in a cast type thing for a few weeks while his hand healed. So anyway during this time, I hung out at his house to keep him from getting too bored. We played a lot of cards. Speed. He won every time and he didn't even have full use of one of his hands.
Anyway, my point. One time he was showing me his hand and the pin sticking out of his finger. He purposely moved the pin around and hissed in a breath. I asked him if that hurt. He looked at me with a 'Duh' look and said, "Yeah."
"Then why did you do that?" I asked, completely shocked.
His reply is something I have never forgot and think of it often. He said, "I kinda like pain. Ya, it sucks while you're going through it and it hurts, but when it's all over, you feel like a new person for making it through."
He's right. When a person comes through a painful experience, whether emotional or physical, they are a changed person if even just a little. Sometimes the change is good and in some cases the change is bad. Whether or not it makes the person feel new is subjective, I suppose. Hopefully there are lessons learned. But there are times when the lesson isn't learned (or is forgotten) and the pain must be repeated.
For every choice we make, there are consequences that follow. Some are good, some...not so much. Some cause pain - not because it's a bad choice - but because it's the nature of the beast. To sum it up in one word, that would be "Life." Everything has it's opposite. Good/evil. Pleasure/pain. Happy/sad. Light/dark. Without the bad, we would never be able to enjoy the good. Without pain, we would never be able to truly have pleasure. Without the darkness, we'd never see the light. If we were never sad, we wouldn't know what it's like to be happy. And so on....
So if I have to go through some pain to get some pleasure so be it. I just wish the pleasure would last longer and the pain last shorter. (I don't care that that's not grammatically correct, lol) The pain that I feel in my heart isn't something that is going to receive it's pleasure anytime soon, if at all. Sometimes (most of the time) it's dull enough to bearable. And other times, I am so unsettled and uncomfortable I feel as if I'm trying to jump out of my skin.