Avoiding pain usually costs more than feeling it

Nepo argues that most of the suffering people carry isn't the original wound itself but the accumulated effort of avoiding it: the distraction, the busyness, the elaborate routines built to keep a feeling from surfacing. Drawing on his own experience with cancer treatment, he describes noticing that fighting his fear took more energy than simply letting himself feel afraid for a while and then continuing anyway. This isn't an argument for wallowing; it's a claim that resistance itself is exhausting in a way that direct feeling is not, because resistance requires constant vigilance to maintain, while feeling something fully tends to move through and eventually lighten. He frames the habit of immediately reaching for distraction, whether through work, entertainment, or forced positivity, as a learned reflex rather than a natural response, and one that can be gradually unlearned by practicing small moments of simply staying present with discomfort. Takeaway: the energy spent avoiding a feeling is often greater than the energy required to simply experience it.