Why do we pursue things if we know they are going to hurt us?

Question

Having a discussion in class about Romeo and Juliet and this question was brought up.

Answer 1

I heard an interesting statement about cutter - those who use razor blades and cut themselves. They say that the pain of the cut is easier to deal with than the pain in their lives. It masks the harder-to-deal-with pain.

Sad, eh?

Answer 2

i believe we do it for the experience... we are afraid of looking back someday and wondering what could have been. and we are afrais of missing out.

Answer 3

because somtimes we have to put our hand in the fire to know why everybody keeps telling us not to do it.

IF that makes sence?

and we are hard headed sometimes too, we think with our hearts instead of our minds :)

Answer 4

this is why we have free will, we could elect not to pursue that which will hurt us and do it anyway, like falling in love with the wrong person, we know from the beginning that it will be disastrous and go for it, anyway, the pleasure of the dangerous consequences.

Answer 5

curiosity and adventure!  Sometimes you can't help it, you may know what the end result is going to be, but knowing isn't always enough.  Some seek out the experience and find out things the hard way.

Answer 6

I think it depends on whether you mean physically or mentally. Physically, I don't understand why. Mentally, I think we are made to take chances. In Romeo and Juliet's case, I don't know that they knew they were going to get hurt. Maybe, as some of us might prefer to think, they were optimistic about their outcome. Maybe that's how we are as people, we prefer to be optimistic about the outcome of our situation.