Most people run from pain. I get why. Pain looks like punishment. Comfort feels fair. But if you zoom out, almost every decision in your 20s or 30s reduces to the same equation: pain now for freedom later, or freedom now for pain later.
We rarely see the math because the world keeps selling short-term comfort. Take the easy path. You deserve to enjoy your 20s. The truth is simpler. A few years of learning a hard skill while friends party can buy decades where work is optional. A few years of strict health can buy decades of graceful aging. A few years of building something that feels impossible can buy decades where money choices are generous, not stressful.
That is compounding. The same principle that made Buffett wealthy with money makes people wealthy with time. Time and effort are currencies. Where you invest them decides your returns. Big companies know this. They invest to capture your attention because your time prints value for them. If you do not invest your time with intention, someone else will.
When I started Banjaaran Studio, people told me selling a ₹5,000 shoe online in India was impossible. Premium market, new brand, handcrafted product, zero shortcuts. I chose the lower curve on that simple graph. Short-term pain. Learning the craft. Fixing a hundred micro problems a day. Shipping with limited resources. Hearing no. A lot. I have not raised a round yet. Not because I am scared. Because I want to raise my threshold first. I want to be the person who can use someone else’s money responsibly at scale. The work is forcing me to level up before I level up the capital. If I can hold pain a little longer, the area under the freedom curve gets massive.
Pain is not punishment. It is the price of admission to a different life. Jensen Huang, NVIDIA’s founder, told graduates that he hopes pain and suffering happen to them, because only through it will they discover what they are made of. That is the part most of us avoid. The pain you dodge today is often the freedom you forfeit tomorrow. Study while others scroll. Lift while others lounge. Build while others binge. You are not missing out. You are buying in.
Compounding works with people the way it works with money. At first, learning feels useless. Then the dots start to connect. Then you stack context. Your base rate of output rises. Leverage shows up. Tools, teams, trust. The graph bends in your favor.
When I am choosing between comfort and growth, I ask one question. Will this make future me more free or more dependent. If the answer is free, I choose the pain. If the answer is dependent, I walk away, even when the comfortable option looks shiny.
You will be asked to pick a curve. Nobody will announce it. It will look like small choices. Sleep or learn. Party or practice. Post or produce. Shortcut or standard. Choose pain. Not reckless pain. Purposeful pain. The kind that compounds into strength, reputation, and the right kind of luck. Most people choose a few years of comfort and rent the next few decades to regret. You do not have to. See the graph. Play the long game. Buy your freedom.
I turned 30 this year. I wish I had learned this in my early 20s. I cannot change that, but I can choose with clarity now. Every time the choice appears, I will pick short-term pain over short-term comfort until I do not have to. If you ask me when I will stop choosing pain, I do not have an answer. I think I will know when I no longer need to. I do not know when the loop ends, but my graph will flatten someday. I will wait for that day and keep choosing the hard thing until it arrives.
Kveer, signing out.
