Want To Be Successful? Get Uncomfortable!
The “axis of comfortable-misery”
I am not going to overcomplicate this. There is a direct connection between comfort (the known, the familiar), and misery (aborted dreams, regret). If you feel like you are failing at the game of life, this is probably the reason.
Much like the guilty comforts we indulge in at our local pubs, the thoughts and habits we daily entertain — because they're cozy and satisfying — are the very ones that make us apathetic, lethargic, indolent. And so we drink from the bottles that empty us.
Worded differently, it’s difficult to give up the beliefs, routines, and vices that make us miserable because they also tend to bring us a certain level of repose. An excuse is preferable to the solution, not because it’s necessarily 100% warranted; rather, it’s easier to have an alias than to put in the effort or confront our fears and ingrained behaviours.
As technology continues to become more sophisticated and accessible, things like personal connection, physical exertion, simple pleasures, and goal pursuit are often traded for the succour of convenience.
We don’t realize that what we are sacrificing is adventure and resilience. Perhaps over the course of a couple hundred thousand years of pleasure-seeking and risk/pain-avoidance, nature has groomed us to be this way. But it has also made us soft in certain directions.
Many proponents of self-development have observed a common and formidable bulwark between us and our ideal life. Bob Proctor has called this ‘The Terror Barrier’. I already brought up the fear of risk and pain. But it might be even deeper than that.
It could be as simple as the anxiety commensurate with becoming someone else, which is invariably what happens when we advance toward a worthy good. Our present beliefs — as limiting as they may be, as appropriate to the context or environment we find ourselves — they give us a sense of orientation within reality.
We all know that certain convictions, like one’s preference to iPhones over androids, say — or vice versa — are fairly trivial to shift. But what about that toxic relationship you’ve been in for the past 20 years? What about that religion you belong to? What about that political identity you’ve propped up for however long? And I have them just like you, so don’t think I’m putting on pretenses.
These are not so easy to just let go of. They’re not iPhones and androids. They are monumental assumptions that orient us in the world. To challenge them, and your views toward money, sex, life-purpose, etc. is to challenge reality itself. Because they are your reality.
It’s easy to miss the fact that, from a subjective point of view, there is no difference between challenging your reality and challenging reality, en soi. Because, again, from that subjective matrix, they feel identical. Make no mistake, when we pursue a greater good, it will set off a cascade of profound transformations within you.
Let’s just assume, for the sake of argument, that all these shifts are benevolent, harmless. Terror may still be an eminent emotion because it’s unfamiliar. That is why the known is comfortable. The conventional, mundane, recognizable, gives us a sense of confidence. It’s the difference between standing on ice and concrete.
It’s like the old expression, “Better to stick with the devil you know.” The problem is, the devil is no bed-fellow. That’s why we call him ‘the devil’.
“It’s hard to let go of the demons inside; they were holding you when no one else would.” — Mayank Kumar
So, just like ‘the axis of evil’, I’m calling this “the axis of comfortable-misery”. Let’s see if I can make the slogan trend. Unlike the former, though, this war is legitimate, and won’t cost 2 trillion-F$ck-dollars! How will you respond to the battle cry?