Sometimes, pain is necessary: Mothers endure the pain of childbirth to have children, athletes endure the pain of training to win races.
Entrepreneurs endure the pain of failure to have a chance at success.
But unnecessary pain is never good. There’s no reason to seek pain for its own sake.
Yet we do it frequently. Unintentionally.
Because of a little something called pride.
Alexander the…Pained?
In the 300s BC, a young man named Alexander became king of the ancient Greek kingdom of Macedon at the ripe old age of 20.
Alexander had every early advantage for becoming a leader: he was tutored by Aristotle, and his father, Philip II, was a powerful and successful warrior.
Alexander showed great potential when he was young: at age 10, he tamed a horse no one else could manage, and by 16, he had quelled a revolt and founded his own city — which he named after himself.
At age 20, Alexander became king after his father was assassinated, and quickly began to dominate Asia Minor, piece by piece.
But Alexander “the Great” was proud. Very proud.
