Discomfort

Our whole life is set up in the path of least resistance. We don’t want to suffer. We don’t want to feel discomfort. So the whole time, we’re living our lives in a very comfortable area. There’s no growth in that.

David Goggins

A little over three years ago, I wrote an article called Perseverance. The article was based on the fact that not everything in life goes our way, and it’s important at times to have backups for things we have planned and worked for, for extended durations of time.

I am still a firm believer of this philosophy, because I know that I am not as confident a risk-taker as many people in the world, even when I realise that I am a different man now, in a different set of circumstances compared to when I wrote my previous article.

Just to substantiate my claim: At the time, the world was in complete lockdown. Everyone had a brewing set of mental & physical ailments. On my personal front, I had a whole bunch of free time because I was waiting for my employment to begin. (What do you mean I still have a bunch of free time?)

The world is changing even more as we speak, and the rate at which this change is taking place is astounding. Think about it, Bitcoin came, went and is now coming back. Artificial intelligence is now very much a reality, and it is getting embedded with every facet of business, and our lives as well.

However, there is one particular change that we experience which is bothering me, a little too much at that. I am guilty of this myself, and I don’t feel that’s okay. And that has prompted me to write this article.

Just to build a little more premise, we will take yet another trip down memory lane. I’m pretty sure I have used this example in another one of my articles, but it fits just right here as well.

Revisiting my childhood days

I believe everyone who has stepped into adulthood has at least once (or a million times) fantasised about being a child again. The endless energy, the enthusiasm, the rigour and the wonder of the world. I, for one, truly miss the time when I was a child. Life used to be so simple.

There is one particular aspect of my childhood self at which I constantly look back, which is, if there was something I wanted to do, have or be, there was no power in the universe which would have stopped me from doing, having or being it. And according to my parents, I wasn’t the worst kid in the world.

(I wasn’t the best kid in the world either, but that’s besides the point.)

To be fair, at the time the things I intended to do were to scale. I wanted to do things like playing outside my house for an extra 30 minutes, have things like the latest Pokemon toy or be a superhero in my mind and jump over a large pile of pillows.

(If there are any kids reading this, don’t jump over pillows. The pillows are soft, the ground is not.)

I’d like to draw attention to a couple of important facts here.

• The timeframe between wishes and fulfilment of my wishes used to be extremely small. In worst case scenarios, it would be a week.
• As a kid, I didn’t have to worry about the “how” portion of the fulfilment of my wishes. So it was all good, all the time.

Coming back to reality

Now that we have seen that kids have a great deal of drive to reach fulfilment, the time frame to reach fulfilment is rather short, and the how doesn’t really matter to them.

However, as we grow up and become adults, things change. We are more aware of what we are doing, what we are asking for, and we have a lot more control over the decisions we make.

Now that we have grown up, it’s only logical that the desires we have grow up also. So they have longer gestation, execution and completion periods when compared to the desires we have as children.

So, the desires are larger & the duration is larger. It’s only natural that the sail between the desire and its fulfilment would usually not be as smooth as it used to be.

Simply said, things do get messy, circumstances are not always in our favour & may arise the feelings that we are not comfortable with a particular situation en route to the accomplishment.

And today, with the abundance of energy sinks we have around us, it’s effortless to identify newer avenues, newer desires to fulfil, which has made us a lot more susceptible to just giving up.

Now on to the point I wanted to make, which is:

Not liking something is not a good enough reason to quit doing it, especially when the outcomes are good for you.

I know this looks like a contrarian commentary on everything being prescribed on social media these days where any behaviour can be termed “toxic” at the drop of a hat. I have heard countless people on the web saying “it’s okay to give up on [fill in the blank] because you don’t feel like it”.

On the other hand, think about anything worth achieving: health comes with its sacrifices, wealth with its own. Time, well don’t even get me started on time. Will these pursuits cause discomfort? You bet your bottom dollar.

But the results at the end of these processes are nothing short of extraordinary.

After some self-exploration, anything that matters to you, you will find you value more than this temporary discomfort. So, before quitting anything, it’s always prudent to take a step back, and have a look at the bigger picture.

As always, I have a daunting question to end this musing. How do we stick to things when things get tough? Well, I have got an idea.

If you stuck around this far, thank you for your time. If you enjoyed this, share this with one friend of yours whom you think will benefit from reading this. Thanks for reading, and I will see you in the next one. 🙂