saying yes to life

Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of humankind as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all.

Helen Keller

why experience pain?

I declare, monks [dhammafarers], that actions (kamma) willed, performed and accumulated, will not become extinct as long as their results have not been experienced, be it in this life, in the next life or in future lives. And as long as these results of actions willed, performed and accumulated, have not been experienced, there will be no end to suffering.
-words of Gautama Buddha

Parallel saying in contemporary Christian tradition:
I heard a priest once say the fires of hell and the pain of purgatory weren't literal fire, but the burning pain of regret around unhealed or unresolved harmful actions.