How do I relate to discomfort without letting it trap me?

The summer heat wears me down. It slows everything, making the smallest effort feel heavier. My instinct is to retreat to air conditioning—hide away, keep still—and that makes for a downward spiral: the less I move, the less I want to move. Add in the passing years, and my weight and energy trend the wrong direction.

[T]he mind wants comfort, and is afraid of discomfort and change. The mind is used to its comfort cocoon, and anytime we try to push beyond that comfort zone very far or for very long, the mind tries desperately to get back into the cocoon. At any cost, including our long-term health and happiness.

~ Leo Babauta from, The Lies Your Mind Tells You to Prevent Life Changes

It’s all about what I’m accustomed to, and how hard I push myself. I push myself very hard (too hard, in general) and when things are also uncomfortable I run out of energy earlier and more abruptly. Some days, it’s just too hot to do much of anything— but I’ve not learned to expect that. To plan ahead for a tomorrow in which I’ll get nearly nothing done.

Comforts, once gained, become necessities. And if enough of those comforts become necessities, you eventually peel yourself away from any kind of common feeling with the rest of humanity.

~ Sebastian Junger

Good old hedonic adaptation does me in without fail.

I challenge you today to accept the fact that the stuff worth doing doesn’t get any easier. Every time you find yourself getting too comfortable, or things are getting too easy, reach for something that produces discomfort.

~ Steve Kamb from, How Comfortable Are You With This? Your Success Depends on It | Nerd Fitness

This is something I often struggle with. Kamb is writing about fitness, but I have this problem more generally. It would serve me well to be thinking: Is this the best I can do now, with the tools, knowledge, situation, and skills I have now? If so, terrific! That’s great enough. Instead I usually pile self-negativity onto discomfort.

Does the road wind uphill all the way?
Yes, to the very end.
Will the day’s journey take the whole long day?
From morn to night, my friend.
Shall I find comfort, travel-sore and weak?
Of labour you shall find the sum.
Will there be beds for me and all who seek?
Yea, beds for all who come.

~ Christina Rossetti

The trap is that as discomfort arises, instead of using it as feedback, I double it with criticism. The only way I’ve found to interrupt that spiral is to practice a counter-habit: speaking the good things out loud.

Say nice things out loud. That’s what I’ve been striving toward in recent years. No more sitting on the positive thoughts. Practice letting out the good stuff too. You look nice. This is so comfortable. This food is delicious. Thank you for making this gathering happen. In general: If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.

[T]he comfort zone. This is the bane of all athletes, the enemy of all entrepreneurs and creative[s], and the graveyard of dreams.

~ Dan Edwardes from, Risk and Reward

This is a ubiquitous problem. Perhaps you’ve heard the phrase, “stuck in the doldrums“? It’s a literal place where there isn’t much wind, and thus the bane of old-timey sailors. But the metaphorical doldrums are just as real.

That’s what the heat feels like—stuck in the doldrums, waiting for a breeze. You can avoid the literal doldrums. You can at best only try to avoid the metaphorical ones. Whether it’s literal or metaphor though, the way out is the same: concerted, intentional effort to go somewhere else.

You can’t just live in a comfortable little suburban neighborhood and get your education from movies and television and have any perspective on life.

~ J. Craig Venter

I can go around and around thinking about discomfort. Some amount is good and too much appears to be bad. But in the end? It’s the going around in thought that’s really the problem. Instead, when I find myself going around, I need to relax and let those thoughts leave my mind of their own accord.

We tend to think of home as a specific location — a defined physical space where we feel safe and entitled to be ourselves. But home, like so many other things that profess to be something more concrete, is really just an emotion. “Home” is the emotion of belonging you get from very familiar places.

~ David Cain from, Two Simple Tricks to Be More Comfortable in Your Own Skin

Belonging, too, is fleeting.

Slow down. Relax. If things are going badly, relax for they will not last. And if things are going well, relax for they will not last.

Until next time, thanks for reading.

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