No Pain No Gain

First came to prominence circa 1982 when actress Jane Fonda started using the phrase in her aerobic workout videos to encourage the viewer to push past the soreness of the muscle so they could gain the result they desire. Although the “No pain; no gain” philosophy is most often associated with fitness, it has undeniably become largely used in life in general. Often in life, in order to get what we want, we have to do things that are not exactly to our likings. We go out of or way just so we could achieve our goals. I have personally experienced that. So, yes, I wholeheartedly believe in the “No pain; no gain: philosophy. I believe that nothing could be achieved with zero sacrifice. Especially if your aim is to achieve great things, then I believe the sacrifice you make needs to be equally great. You can’t expect to achieve great things by doing nothing can you? I think the most common example would be people’s desire to have a fit body.

Getting your body into shape is indeed grueling work. It’s painful and it certainly does not happen overnight. But if getting a fit body is truly what you want, I believe in the end when you finally get the result, all those effort, pain and sacrifice will be worth it. If you persevere and have enough determination to achieve your goal, I believe the pain you experience will be nothing compare to the result you get. Although I agree with this philosophy, there are a lot of people who do not seem to agree with me. They think that there is some sort of shortcut to achieving their goals. Truth is, there is none. If you don’t do anything, then you certainly will not achieve anything.

I wonder how long they go in life before they finally realized the cold harsh truth that nothing could be achieved without effort. But having said that, I do believe there is a limit as to how far a person should follow this particular philosophy. Everyone should be able to know their ability. Of what you can and cannot do. If the pain you have to go through might jeopardize your wellbeing then you might want to avoid it; especially when what you gain is not worth the pain. A good example would be those people who are willing to wait in line for hours on end to se their favorite musicians. Sometimes, some of them even wait for days. I think it’s okay to do that as long as they are up for it. But I’ve seen those who push themselves too hard and ended up fainting which means they don’t get to see the show at all. I think it’s imperative for someone to know their limitation because if they push too hard they might even get further away from achieving their goals. In conclusion, the “No pain; no gain” Philosophy is a concept everyone should live by because you cannot achieve anything without some sort of sacrifice. But, you need to know your limitations.