When we fail to live by the success laws, we tend to look to the short-term gain over our long-term name. We tend to take the easy way out. We throw in the towel and look for the path of least resistance because that’s how the human mind is designed to operate. The mind is habitual; basal if you will. It operates on innate desires for pleasure that are rooted in our genetic code.
But, it’s our job to override that desire for instant-pleasure and live life according to the success laws. We can’t simply take the easy way out because we’re afraid of the long and arduous journey littered with obstacles that need to be overcome in order to live the life that we truly desire.
Yet, when we’re struggling to pay the bills, who can think of launching a business that would take years to get off the ground before we can even see a decent paycheck? When we can’t afford to enjoy life our minds have a funny way of moving us out of pain and into pleasure. We don’t want to suffer. Human beings weren’t made to just survive, we were made to thrive.
But, although we were meant to thrive, the mind has a funny way of putting what it wants into the short-term perspective and not into the long-term perspective. What do I mean? Well, let’s take cigarette smoking for example. Everyone knows that cigarette smoking is bad for them, yet they still do it. Why is that? The mind is doing more to avoid pain than gain pleasure in the short term, not in the long term.
The cigarette smoker won’t quit smoking because their mind has associated smoking with pleasure in the short term. Once that cigarette hits their mouths and they take that first drag, it’s instantaneous pleasure. Even if they know, somewhere in the back of their minds that cigarette smoke can kill them in the long term, they’ve associated more pain to quitting in the short term than they have to the potential pain and illness it will cause them in the long term.