But sometimes this pleasure/pain principle can be inverted. For instance in my work with smoking cessation clients I often find that those who come to me for help to stop smoking dread the new smoke free life that is ahead of them when they give up smoking. In fact this is often at the root of why they may have tried and failed to give up smoking in the past. Everyone knows that smoking is bad for your health, and for your wallet and that you end up with bad breath and smelling like a used ashtray. But instead of looking at all the things that they gain by giving up cigarettes: Better Health, More Money, Clean Breath, etc. some stop smoking clients focus on all the negative things: “I’m going to put on weight”, “I’m not going to fit in with my friends any more”, “What will I do to de-stress?”, “Will I start fidgeting with my hands?”

Yet, if you buy a brand new car do you look at the shiny new paint work and wish for the dull and scratched paint of your old car. When you sit inside and smell that new car smell do you wish for the old smell of your old car. When you start it up and feel the smooth running brand new engine do you wish for the clunky old engine of your last car. Or do you sit into your new car look at the shiny dashboard and bright displays, smell the unique new car smell and feel the smooth power of a brand new engine.

And so it is with with any change in your life. If you focus on the pain you will experience more pain than pleasure. If you concentrate on the pleasure, on the new benefits of of your new life, so you will experience more pleasure then pain. If you focus on the pain then the change in your life will be painful. If you focus on the pleasure then change will be pleasurable.

So why choose pain when you can choose pleasure?

Everyone feels afraid sometimes. Everyone feels fear. But do you know what fear is? Not what it feels like to be afraid, but what fear actually is?

Fear is just four little letters: F. E. A. R.

To be more precise F. E. A. R. is:
False
Expectations
Appearing
Real

We feel fear based on what we think is going to happen in the future.

The future is unknown to us, but we all base our actions here in the present on what we think will happen in the future. But nobody can say for sure what is about to happen. Nobody can predict what events will unfold in our lives. So we imagine what might happen. We make up stories and conjure images in our mind.

And then we act as if these imagined fantasies are real.

But they are not real. They are just figments of your imagination, unreal, and perhaps unrealistic.

So don’t let false expectations hold you back. Do what you need to do without any expectations. The future is an illusion, an imagined image that we have made up in our head. None of us know what is about happen next. If you are considering a certain course of action no one can foresee what the eventual outcome will be. You can only do your best, be true to your believes and trust your own abilities.

The future will be revealed as soon as it happens. And then you will know that it was nothing like you imagined it would be.

These guys put 440 hours into recreating one scene from The Matrix in Lego.