Comfort Kills: Why Getting Uncomfortable is the Secret to Living Your Best Life and Improved Mental Power
A comfortable life is a dreadful life.
All over the world, statistics tell you that the quality of life is improving. Still, in most "developed nations," people are killing themselves at unprecedented rates. No other mammalian species offs themselves as we do. It's tragic. Sad. Something is deeply missing from our modern lives.
Most people have a paying job, a cozy bed, and temperature-controlled everything.
At the same time, the average person walks 1.5 miles daily, often to and from their automobile that carries them everywhere.
A comfortable life has made us lazy and weak—mentally, physically, and spiritually.
We’ve lost our mental power. We're in a Comfort Crisis.
Recently, my soul has been screaming for liberation from this softness outside of my daily workouts, hour-long runs, cold plunges, and scorching myself in a sauna.
Even with all that, something hasn't felt "right" on the inside.
In the past, I hated being stuck in an office all day and dreaded commuting. Then I thought the remote work phenomenon was my opportunity to take advantage of something incredible—which it is in many ways. But I'm not made to work all day, every day, in a home office.
I've been going batshit crazy.
Sleepwalking through life is a waste of life.
Scientists in the United Kingdom have coined this evolving way of living, "autopilot" mode.
"Once we've done something over and over, our mind zones out of whatever old thing it's doing. Instead of being present and aware, we're far more likely to be lost somewhere inside our noggin."
We plan our dinner, daydream about the new season on Netflix, and speculate "about our office frenemy's salary. We live in a state of constant mental churn and meaningless chatter."
That's why life zips by.
Comfortable and predictable routines kill your purpose and zap your mental power.
The individual events of our lives become blurred and indistinct when we just do the "same shit, different day."
"In youth, we may have an absolutely new experience, subjective or objective, every hour of the day. Apprehension is vivid, retentiveness strong, and our recollections of that time, like those of a time spent in rapid and interesting travel, are of something intricate, multitudinous, and long-drawn-out. But as each passing year converts some of this experience into automatic routine that we hardly note at all, the days and the weeks smooth themselves out in recollection to contentless units, and the years grow hollow and collapse."
We no longer remember the details of our experiences, and instead, we find ourselves holding onto a vague impression of our past.
As time passes, our memories become less vivid, and we can no longer recall the specifics of our experiences. That's because we've become soft and lazy.
We're not experimenting, stretching ourselves, and constantly learning new things.
All we do is think about our phones and low-level crap:
The average human attention span is 8.25 seconds, but it has decreased by almost 25% from 2000 to 2015.
To free myself, I started on an adventurous journey—training for a massive thru-hike.
Thru-hiking is long-distance hiking like the Appalachian Trail, which is over 2,400 miles long. I'll start small with the Florida State Trail, but training, learning how to survive, camp, and being exposed to hundreds of new skills has been what I was looking for.
I needed an outdoor challenge.
I needed to learn new skills.
I needed to break myself mentally and physically every day.
My family and I go on long hikes for hours. I do daily weighted rucksack walks, even while on a meeting call. We're learning to forage, build fires, and construct a shelter.
It's been f'ing awesome.
The lesson:
Don't live your life on autopilot.
Challenge yourself, learn new things, and, my God, stop being so damn comfortable.
