This is how it all started…
There is no one who loves pain itself, who seeks after it and wants to have it, simply because it is pain. However, temporary circumstances can occur where through exertion and pain one may achieve some great pleasure. For example, who among us undertakes laborious physical exercise except to obtain some advantage from it? On the other hand, we rightly denounce those who are so beguiled and demoralized by the charms of pleasure of the moment, and so blinded by desire, that they cannot foresee the pain and trouble bound to ensue.
Equal blame belongs to those who fail in their duty through weakness of will, shrinking from toil and pain. In a free hour, when our power of choice is untrammeled and nothing prevents us from doing what we like best, every pleasure is to be welcomed and every pain avoided. But owing to the claims of duty or business obligations, it will frequently occur that pleasures have to be repudiated and annoyances accepted. The wise man therefore always holds to this principle of selection: he rejects pleasures to secure other greater pleasures, or else he endures pains to avoid worse pains.
Cicero
Romancing J
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