Comfort keeps you busy; discomfort shows you the way
20th October 2021
We’re really encouraged to seek comfort. In fact, when you think about it most of our lives are about making ourselves comfortable every moment of every day. We get really protective and particular about the things that keep us comfortable throughout the day. It can range from whether we can have the coffee just the way you want it to whether we’ve had time to fix our hair just like we usually do so we can feel presentable to how other people drive on our commute to work. All those simple and mundane things have the power to make or break how comfortable we feel that day.
But what about if comfort was keeping us prisoner. Prisoner of our own likes and dislikes, prisoners in the sense that we have to perform those rituals and habits in the exact same way that our comfort dictates in order to just feel ok.
Let’s look at the other side of the coin. What if we were ok with being uncomfortable. What if comfort wasn’t our north star, what we do in a day wasn’t dictated by one single aim…would that make us freer? What if we could make friends with being uncomfortable? Not to see it as something to be avoided at all cost? What if we could just witness the discomfort and go where it’s pointing?
My theory is that it would makes us feel more alive, it would shows us paths in our day that would be unexpected and would point at a deeper truth about what’s important to us moment by moment. And is that not what most of us crave? That sense of unpredictability, of being able to be in the moment and go with it. I believe we can build that into our day, in small ways, by paying attention to when we feel uncomfortable and stopping to think whether there’s something interesting and worthwhile behind that feeling, whether comfort is really the be all and end all of our lives, or just a panacea that our culture has created to keep us busy but that personally it’s creates a numb feeling which is what we’re all trying to shake.
Let’s try a little experiment, next time you notice yourself seeking comfort ask yourself whether what would that moment take you if you chose discomfort?