Although we typically try to avoid pain at all costs, pain itself can actually play an vital part in our lives. Take our bodies, for example. When we feel pain, we know something isn’t right. And so pain not only alerts us to the need we have to deal with the cause of the pain, but it also gives us an immediate incentive to do so. If we never felt pain, the underlying problem may never be dealt with, and we may not even know there is a problem until it’s too late.

So, since some pain can be beneficial, it’s important to not totally insulate ourselves from it. Doing so may feel good in the short term, but if there’s an underlying problem, the absence of felt pain may actually make things worse in the long run.