I think your disagreement is over time preference. Which path you choose now depends on how much you discount future pain versus present moral guilt or empathy considerations.
I would prefer a world in which I was in pain but am able to complete certain projects to one in which I was in pleasure but unable to complete certain projects.
In other words, you would make that choice now because that would make you feel best now. Of course (you project that) you would make the same choice at time T, for all T occurring between now and the completion of your projects.
This is known as having a high time preference. It might seem like a quintessential example of low time preference, because you get a big payoff if you can persist through to completing those projects. However, the initial assumption was that "the rest of my life would be more painful than it was pleasant," so ex hypothesi the payoff cannot possibly be big enough to balance out the pain.
An Open Thread: a place for things foolishly April, and other assorted discussions.
This thread is for the discussion of Less Wrong topics that have not appeared in recent posts. If a discussion gets unwieldy, celebrate by turning it into a top-level post.
Update: Tom McCabe has created a sub-Reddit to use for assorted discussions instead of relying on open threads. Go there for the sub-Reddit and discussion about it, and go here to vote on the idea.