"Choose your pain"
If we have established there is no escaping pain in our lives. That the destination, fraught with pain, is the part we need to fall in love with in order to continue, to stick with something to our desired end.
Then all there is left to do, is to choose the pain we would be okay experiencing- not necessarily in and of itself like a masochist- but we weigh the desired outcome as worthy of accepting the pain.
I used to hear this sample all the time by Cutty Ranks’ “A Who Seh Meh Done” (1992) and it would say
"6 million ways to die, choose one"
I thought it was about being reckless, but I can see now it's about accepting the inevitable end which is out of you control.
But taking ownership of the one thing you do have control over.
You're going to die anyway, choose your pain.