no pain, no gain

this belief is so ingrained in our psyche that the fear of said 'pain' prevents us from doing anything at all to get the 'gain'

that's how it feels for me anyway.

what would be worse though - the feeling of pain, potentially balanced significantly by the 'gain', and the feeling of actually doing something to move toward the dream life.  or the continuous feeling of living in hopelessness, that nothing ever changes and that I am a failure...

this pain of failure I feel now is repeated through lofty goals, dreams, and hopes that are never realised because I don't put in the daily effort to deliver... or perhaps I'm just focusing on wanting the 'wrong', distant gain, when I need to focus on the small gain that I can get more frequently from just working slowly and surely toward the lifestyle I dream of.