Comfort and Fear

December 17, 2023

3–5 minutes

I spend much of my time wondering what constitutes the “right” way to live. I ask myself what counts as wasting my time and what metrics, if any, matter in life’s measurements. To clarify, the “right way to live” should obviously feel subjective, and it’d be shortsighted and egotistical to suppose a universal approach. But there is probably a better way to live for each of us than what we are doing now. There is a path ahead that leads to greater joy, peace, and contentment—a path of self-improvement that is open to all, and it’s one we know we should be seeking. So, what’s holding us back?

Fear. It’s not the sole answer to this question, but it’s a whopper. Like terriers rooting out rats, it clenches us in its jaws while whipping our nervous systems to and fro. The shadows of uncertainty mount an army against our rational minds, plumbing the depths of our insecurities for soft spots to exploit. And here we succumb, arrested and paralyzed by embarrassment or a fear of failure, only to crawl back into our familiar skin through capitulation, avoidance, or disassociation.

Fear is an emotional or biochemical reaction to a perceived threat. Both forms serve a survival purpose, providing deeply encoded messages on how to stay alive. Fear of avoiding a polar bear attack or jumping from a 20-story balcony are healthy fears that are precious and useful. What worries me are unhealthy fears—the ones that cause us to be overly cautious in our decision-making, especially when those fears are motivated by discomfort and ignorance. Irrational fear keeps us from doing things we might enjoy but are too afraid to try.

An unknown Cistercian monk wrote the following in the 1800s, which gets to the heart of the matter:

“You risk so much by hesitating to fling yourself into the abyss.”

We walk through the world with much of our lives mapped, planned, and coded to fit a narrative of how things ought to be. At times, this is great. We propel healthcare forward, raise living standards, and give people more time to pursue their passions rather than laboring for survival. However, we have ideas and fears that we refuse to challenge because the outcomes are unpredictable, all while those fears guide us like rudders on a ship toward a rocky shore. We make up our own accounting so that our beliefs are encased in a philosophical framework and sealed off from scrutiny. We avoid reality because the thoughts in our heads are too heavy for us to bear. We construct religions out of black and white. And while we build these walls of comfort, the freedom of discovery slips through our fingers.

Comfort is a wonderful sensation, and we are extremely fortunate to have it. Much of human history has been spent battling predators, plagues, diseases, and malnourishment. We now have the opposite problem, with metabolic diseases caused by caloric excess. Type II diabetes has skyrocketed in school-aged children. Heart disease kills more Americans than smoking. Exercise is viewed as a chore, not a privilege of wealth. Our lives are so easy that we can often avoid leaving our temperature-controlled homes for days on end if we choose.

And this is our cancer.

We’ve become slaves to comfort, afraid to thrust ourselves by choice into hardship. And with each inactive day, we atrophy in mind and body more and more, rendering us ill-equipped to stomach real resistance. We fear flinging ourselves into the abyss. And in the abyss, we are forced to plumb our own depths and source the tools needed to navigate hardship. We must illuminate our own path, warm our bodies, and traverse unfamiliar terrain. We must rely on our internal strength to see us through the muck.

Pick your poison and face it. A race, a challenge, a negative emotion—you chose. Seek some form of discomfort and explore it. Poke around and test its walls. Does it have soft spots that you can exploit? If not, don’t fret. Face it. Face it head-on. Be the individual that stands and looks calmly toward the turbulent waters in front of you. Be the person ready to embrace the suck, the grind, and the challenge. Build resistance by enduring. Test your resolve. And when it fails, test it again. Build calluses. Walk into your own form of darkness and create your own light. You are so much more capable than you know. You have so much more effort to give. Start right now. Start today.