Photo by @nycfoodblog
Beyond any experiences we may be lucky to attain in life, we seem to be overruled by discomfort. Discomfort is glaringly obvious, and incredibly spooky. We shy away from it, go through all kinds of length to avoid thinking about, or even thinking about thinking about it. It seems logical, we are animals after all. Our nature directs us to seek pleasure, to seek the things that will help us survive, the food, the shelter, the sex, the experiences that lead to an injection of pure bliss. But bliss is a one way street. Bliss leaves us hung up to dry after just one year, one month, one week, one hour, one minute, even one third of a second later. Bliss listens to no one, and leaves at precisely the right time, egging us on to seek it again. Bliss is unfeeling, it cares not that we desire it. But I suppose that we should care. Without even knowing it, we trap ourselves into a cycle of seeking and yearning. Of setting aside the stillness to power through thing after thing to get to a state of harmony that seems imagined. A dopamine rush three seconds long leaving you as unsatisfied as you were before it.
Why do we do it? On the other side of bliss, sits discomfort. Discomfort takes many forms and has many names: it appears as idleness, making you itch in the middle of the night, considering the things you’ve not yet done and the ones you could potentially work yourself up to doing if you were just a little more proactive. Discomfort appears to want to help. It wants you to get out of bed and work, to question whether the state of your environment is really that optimal. Discomfort is disciplining. It forces us to create new patterns when we fail ourselves, and even newer patterns when our state of being needs an update. Discomfort is loving. Discomfort is our mother telling us to go to school every morning, our coach telling us to make something of ourselves.
But in times of crisis, when we are unable to chase bliss, when we don’t have the resources, the space, the time, the mental capacity, the emotional aptitude. In times of great stress, discomfort brings us to our knees. Try as we may ignore it, internally, it seems to take over like some cancerous growth. Discomfort is uncomfortable.
And as we all live different lives, many of us find ourselves seated in the same room, doing the same things, sharing the same thoughts. We find ourselves uncomfortable. We try to think it away, try to exercise it away, to read it away, work it away, type it away, speak it away, sleep it away and it just keeps crawling back. That’s the catch isn’t it? We are trying to remove ourselves from something that has been programmed into us, for one reason or another. In times of heightened visceral feeling, let us lean back, take some time in the silence, and sit with our discomfort.
I am uncomfortable. And so what? It’s not who I am, it’s just a part of me. Instead of trying to flee from it, let me escape into it. Let me allow the edge, the anxiety, the sadness, the loneliness, let them all in. And see them, for who they really are. They are not me. They are gentle parts of me, reminding me to move forward. And if I can find space away from these things, maybe, just maybe, I can find comfort within myself. I can be who I am, without needing to be anything more or less, better or worse. I can just be.
And maybe that, is where the true bliss lies.