The Virtue of Pain

A week and a half ago, I wrote about how in some cases you may want to pay down debt on multiple lines of credit to improve your credit score. With an improved credit score, you may be able to get better interest rates or take advantage of zero interest balance transfers.

While this approach is advisable in some situations (and only you can make that decision), I want to share with you another perspective. That perspective says pain is a good thing.

There are two primary human motivations: that of seeking pleasure or avoiding pain. Of these two motivators, avoiding pain is stronger.

For instance, you might do much to acquire your dream home. But you will do whatever is necessary to escape a situation where pain (physical or otherwise) is being inflicted upon you. See the difference?

What was it that caused me to wage war on the credit card companies? Pain, obviously. Without the pain, I wouldn’t have had sufficient motivation. Figuratively speaking, pain was my cattle prod.

Now, once the pain is removed, I have only the memory of pain to motivate me. And memories are notoriously inaccurate. It doesn’t take long to forget pain and get all comfortable again. This is a bad thing.

So let’s apply this to our debt situation.

You could spend time moving your debt around to get more favorable terms. You might even find yourself in a situation with low minimum payments and no interest until next June. But is this really what you want? In the absence of pain (or in the presence of much-reduced pain), you may lose sight of your goal. That is, to get out of debt.

This is one of the risks of taking advantage of favorable credit card offers. In fact, some studies show that people who use zero interest balance transfer offers end up increasing their overall debt instead of decreasing it; the extra zero-interest credit is simply too much of a temptation.

But ultimately, when the favorable terms expire, these debtors are in a worse place than when they started.

So in my own journey to pay off my debt, I’ve not focused a whole lot on alleviating my pain through balance transfers and similar offers. I have focused on improving my credit score, simply so I could lower my interest rates. But I haven’t really wanted to escape the pain of my debts. That’s because pain is valuable to me. It motivates me to continually focus on paying off my debts.

Every time I see the ridiculous amount of interest I’m giving the credit card companies, I renew my focus. And I yet again resolve to become debt free. This is the virtue of pain.