The fact coming up in the rearview mirror is a shocker, but a goodie: If you don’t surrender, a world of pleasure is waiting to be opened to you.

The sweetest returns to effort come after you’ve sweated out liters of life-giving fluid and are on your literal last legs. Then, you burst into the light. Then, and only then, you discover that setting a fire to your own ass was the smartest thing you could have done.

Take going to school for six more years after high school. That’s a major ask of anyone, but to do so and get very good grades is hard. You have to have concentration and focus beyond the ordinary.

But when you get your sheepskin diploma after all that you can honestly say you’re one of the best, one of the elite, and march into the world of industry with confidence in your ability and your right to sit at the head tables.

Say you’re going through mental changes. Perhaps you’re learning to be a thin person again after years in a fat person’s body. Or perhaps you’re evolving toward a generally superior headspace that involves greater clarity than you’ve ever known before.

These mental changes can be exhilarating once you’re done them. The process of change was hard, but now you can raise a glass of iced tea in celebration: you’ve won through! That’s something to applaud, surely.

Any mental change that makes you more beautiful is especially good. More beautiful in any way.

Then there’s the pain of love lost. For men especially, this is a serious blow. (Women seem to be built to shrug it off much more easily.) It’s like the song goes: I am a lonely man burning in love… You have to find a way to live without her. Whether she’s died in an accident or left you of her own volition, you must live like there’s other meaning out there. When you finally can breathe easy, and not obsess every single second of the day, you’re free… and like the Shopper’s Drug Mart voice ad says, Free feels good.

As you can see, there are many branching avenues to explore in the world of pain which eventually terminates in a land of peace, beauty and wonder.

Be a man and accept your destiny. It is to improve your lot wherever and however it can be managed, without undue risk to yourself or those you love. (I hate the word “safety” but some changes are risky beyond countenance and should be avoided.)

The body is meant for pleasure. So is the mind. With discipline comes focus. With focus comes power over one’s self. The power to open up to new experiences is the ultimate reaction-goal you’re seeking. New experiences. They come not free.

In the final analysis, it is the superior quester who arrives at his destination in one piece through a storm of projectiles and bullets being fired from seemingly every direction. “Whether tis nobler to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fate.” Yes. Suffer them. It is nobler to keep going. Another Brit said, “If you are going through Hell, keep going.” There are only good things awaiting you on the other side.