Chronic Pain is not adaptable.

One of the most interesting findings from the happiness research literature is that human beings are remarkably good at adapting to all kinds of misfortunes. Chronic pain, however, is an exception. People either get effective treatment for their pain, or else they’re miserable. Adaptation is fairly minimum. The upshot is that from a real human welfare perspective, we ought to put a lot of weight on making sure that people with chronic pain get the best treatment possible. Minimizing addiction is a fine public policy goal, but the priority should be on making sure that people with legitimate needs can get medicine.

This is definitely a problem for those of us trying to live EVERYDAY with chronic conditions.  And the psychological battle of fighting pain leaves little reserve to battle the condition.  Those people with true painful conditions will rarely get addicted, mainly because the pain medicine simply gets them back to "normal," not to some high.

Jeremy Allaire of Brightcove, on Shaping a Firm’s DNA - NYTimes.com

I think it's crucial to get that early DNA just right. As someone who ended up majoring in English, with a minor in mathematics and philosophy, along with 18 hours on varied sciences, I think it gave me a multi-disciplinary thought process. I also was very active in business education in high school (though I felt it wasn't really teaching me anything NEW). And it's interesting how they all have come together.

Jeremy Allaire of Brightcove, on Shaping a Firm’s DNA - NYTimes.com: "- Sent using Google Toolbar"