An Argument for Dis/Comfort

Keep a loose grip

This week’s thoughts are inspired by two very good friends of mine. They have been incredibly influential in navigating early adulthood and everything that comes with making your own path in life. I was speaking to one just yesterday (Sunday) about my decision to leave my full-time job and jumping into the discomfort and uncertainty that pursuing entrepreneurship brings. Prior to this step, I had many conversations with my friends weighing the pros and cons of being comfortable and pursuing discomfort. This article really is a reflection of these conversation with some more nuances that I have been discovering from being in discomfort.

Photo by Vlad Tchompalov on Unsplash

A little backstory

As you might have gathered from some of the past writings, I grew up in a normal lower-middle class household in Germany. This meant that spending was carefully considered and items such as buying a gaming console or magazine subscription had to be carefully planned. After finishing college, my primary financial goal was to achieve comfort. For me this meant that I wanted to live in a nice apartment and not have to think about how I can afford a TV or a piece of technology. What a privileged position to be in. Fortunately, and surprisingly, I was able to achieve that early on with my first full-time position. After 2 years, I grew comfortable in many other aspects than just finances. I started to let some of my artistic pursuits go because they seemed too difficult to pursue, and I felt my mindset shift to figuring out how to retain the lifestyle I had built - enter dangerous comfort.

Pursuing Discomfort

The moment my mindset began to shift, I realized that something started to fall out of place. Instead of imagining and dreaming of futures that I wanted to have, I began to think about how much money I will need to make or save to continue living in a nice apartment with take-out food and fancy dinners. For my professional future this meant that I either had to stay in my job or find comparable or better jobs that could continue to enable my comfort. I had entered the metaphorical hamster-wheel and knew in my heart that really the experiences I wanted to pursue lay outside the zone of comfort I had created. It’s hard though, to intentionally uproot a comfortable situation and jump into the unknown.

I recently came across a video in which the creator explained the mindsets in different financial classes. The important one here is moving from middle-class to rich people (for a lack of better words). He said that you need to embrace discomfort in order to grow your wealth. I definitely agree and would expand that beyond financial wealth. Embracing discomfort will grow your experiences, knowledge, and ability to respond to whatever life throws at you.

I had this conversation many times with my best-friend. She and I spoke a lot about how we need to embrace discomfort and what we could do to do so. Often, it’s not about upending your entire life, but trying new things that push your boundaries. For example, attending a dance class, attending a panel discussion, or, for me, it’s going to a party or networking event. Nevertheless, it’s imperative that we let go of something to pursue discomfort. We need to create a space that can be filled with the new activity. We need to let go of comfort to make space for discomfort.

Don’t Let Go All the Way!

Maybe I was a little too hasty with saying to let go of comfort – keeping a loose grip might be a better analogy. The reality is that we need some comfort to keep us grounded. A small example is my request to my guests on The Arts in Business. I ask everything to bring a vessel and drink of their choice to the episode that makes them feel comfortable. This is important because in the course of the episode I want to jump into some potentially uncomfortable questions. A bigger example is my current life. I fully embraced discomfort by moving to a new country with a different culture and language I didn’t know, started a company for the first time and am navigating the pressures and joys that accompany entrepreneurship, and I working on sharing more of my thoughts and views through social media and the internet. None of this would be possible if I didn’t have a wonderfully supportive partner, and a beautiful home to which I can retreat when things get too overwhelming.

In the end, it’s a balance that we need to find for ourselves. What level of comfort is necessary for us to pursue discomfort? What do we truly need to keep pushing ourselves without falling into the soft embrace of comfort? In the financial and investing world, another way to ask this question might be how risk averse you are. Don’t get me wrong, if you want to embrace being comfortable for a while, be my guest. We all need it sometimes. Comfort allows us to heal and reflect. It can help us build new relationships and create spaces for others. However, too much of one thing is never good. Sinking into comfort for too long might prevent you from discovering yourself, embracing new opportunities, or building a future in which you can thrive.

Finding Balance

The philosopher Christoph Menke once wrote about how our home is covered in a soft cotton blanket of the familiar. If someone enters our home and begins to ask questions, the blanket lifts and we see familiar objects or circumstances in a new light. This blanket is important for us to process new experiences such as returning from a vacation. Now the context of his writing was that of immigration, human rights, and integration, but I think the underlying concept applies (If you want a longer more contextual explanation of his metaphor, write to me. I’d be happy to talk about it). For the purposes of this article though, it is important to understand that we need the familiar in order to truly process the new. As I wrote in Collaboration is Inevitable, we need to make space for something else to come into our lives. Comfort allows us to create space. If you know that a cup of tea will bring you warmth and strength to have a tough conversation with your boss that you have been avoiding, take time and make your favorite tea before you sit down with them. If you need to have a certain amount of savings in your bank before you can take a trip to a monastery in India that will challenge your body and mind, work toward your goal and then go as soon as you reached it.

Take Action

Do not wait! Whatever you do and whatever goals you set for yourself, do not wait to embrace discomfort. The dangerous and alluring call of comfort will manifest as “Once you have X, you can finally pursue Y.” If you find yourself in that pattern of thinking, it’s time to act. Don’t wait, don’t excuse yourself, don’t procrastinate. Embrace discomfort and thrive.