Hanging a piece in a winning position.
Playing a perfect game only to lose because of time trouble.
There are so many ways that a game of chess can end painfully.
So, we search for ways to make that pain go away, and never appear again. But that only leads to more pain, anxiety and declining fun.
Pain is a part of life
I recently wrote about how growth happens through discomfort.
But sometimes you might catch yourself thinking: “Is growth even worth all this pain?”
That question has a false assumption: that we can avoid pain if we just refuse to go for growth.
Even if you stay at home and refuse to do anything that might be pain inducing, you’ll feel pain. The pain of being lonely and wasting your life.
A better way to think about it is to choose the type of pain you want to feel.
If you really want to improve at chess, not acting on it creates the pain of feeling less of yourself, remorse to not have tried it, and the pain of playing badly whenever you do play chess.
Compared to that, showing up, choosing the pain of doing hard things and occasionally still making blunders, sounds better.
Accept the pain
What helped me a lot recently is not only choosing my type of pain, but deeply accepting it.
Haruki Murakami put this perfectly in his book What I Talk About When I Talk About Running
Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional. – Haruki Murakami
When something painful happens, I just try to remind myself that pain can’t be avoided. And it is okay to feel frustrated, sad or angry.
What I can focus on is how I react to that pain and the feelings coming up.
Alessia recently shared a fun insight with me. If we fast forward to being 80 years old, we’d take even our worst days in our 20s. Just thinking of that helps me make the best out of what can be a painful and annoying day.
That’s life!
The two Arrows
There’s an old story that names exactly this: the two arrows, attributed to Buddha (translation by Thanissaro Bhikku here).
The first arrow stands for physical pain. We all have this and can’t escape it.
The second one stands for mental pain. All the self-pity, worrying, resistance often create a much stronger, self-inflicted pain. We can avoid this.
The cause of anxiety
And what struck me most is the realization that my mental pain is the cause for so much of my anxiety.
The worse I make the pain, the more I start fearing it. And the more I somehow believe there is a way to stop all of the pain, the more anxious I feel.
Once I just fully accept that pain is part of the process and I don’t need to inflict the mental pain on myself, I can relax. Enjoy the process. Play the game, knowing I very well might lose.
Just face the pain
A lot of the mental gymnastics we do every day in the Western World is about trying to avoid pain from appearing.
When readers ask me: “How can I be sure my training pays off”, they want an insurance they won’t feel pain.
That’s impossible.
The harsh truth is we’ll all feel pain. No matter if you choose to play chess, improve at it, or never touch a piece again.
So the question is: are you willing to improve despite the pain you’ll feel?
Keep improving,
GM Noël
PS: This article was initially sent out to my Newsletter list. If you want to get chess improvement advice for free in your inbox, join 17,000+ chess improvers by signing up for Friday Grandmaster Insights here.
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