Hey there!
I’ve been writing quite a bit about the benefits of discomfort and suffering recently.
Maybe I’ve been dealing with more of it than usual. Maybe I’ve been trying to understand and reframe it in light of the current wider conversation that’s going on in the world. Maybe both.
Whatever the reason, it’s a strange topic to talk about. Few people get excited about suffering. Pain addicts, masochists, ascetics, Twitter trolls.
This got me wondering, why is that?
Why are the positive sides of suffering not talked about more often?
The conclusion I came to after thinking about it for a while—at least 30 seconds—is that we have, as a society, become highly averse to suffering.
If you hear about someone going through some kind of mental or physical anguish, the general reaction tends to be one of three:
They’re sick / broken.
They’re not trying hard enough / are ignorant or ungrateful.
They’re a hero for getting through or enduring it.
None of these reactions see the value of suffering. Even the hero story sees suffering as a fault or mistake that simply needs to be endured.
The narratives we’ve built around suffering typically don’t recognize how it supports personal growth and positive change. Rather, they reflect and reinforce mental illness, degeneration, weakness, misfortune, and adversity.
That doesn’t mean we, as a society, don’t love hearing other people’s horror stories. But when we hear them, the tendency isn’t to think the person is free and lucky and that we can learn a lot from them. It’s that we can feel better about ourselves and feel safe in the knowledge that at least our lives are going better than theirs.
It’s only natural to feel bad sometimes. But when everything around you is telling you that feeling bad and suffering is only for the poor, sick, uneducated, or dying, and that you shouldn’t feel bad cos’ life is better than it’s ever been — I mean, look at what your grandparents went through in the war, look at what science tells you about how minuscule your life and worries are, look at how X person built a multi-million dollar empire with nothing but a penny to their name and a bit of hard work! — then you can’t help but feel bad about feeling bad.
This is why I think it’s so tricky to talk about the positive side of suffering. Society is not only built on the lie that nothing positive can come from pain or discomfort, one of its primary goals is to deny and eliminate them at all costs.
Feeling bad? Don’t you know!? You no longer need to! It’s just chemical imbalances or biological maladaptations due to being a chimp living in a busy, high-tech society.
Here, take this pill and carry on.
In order to get the benefits of discomfort, you first need to change your relationship to it. You don’t have to feel guilty, like you’re weak, like there’s something wrong with you, like you’re mentally ill, or like you’re somehow not good enough.
You need to know it’s okay to feel bad. Feeling bad doesn’t have to say or mean anything fundamental about who you are.
If you’ve told yourself or consumed the opposite message all your life, then don’t expect any miraculous changes to happen overnight.
It’s also important to know that there’s no merit in how much suffering or discomfort you can feel. You don’t get points for feeling worse than someone else.
Likewise, letting the difficult feelings in doesn’t mean you settle for them and are now entitled to mope around for as long as you want. It means you acknowledge their existence and give up the fight against yourself. You honor what you’ve been through and what you may now need to do. And you recognize that doing so doesn’t necessarily mean life is going to instantly get “better” or easier.
The goal has simply shifted from getting rid of or avoiding discomfort, to seeing what you can learn from having a more open and accepting relationship to it.
When you give up trying to escape difficult and unwanted feelings, somewhat counterintuitively, you start to feel better, or less bad, about feeling bad.
And when you start to feel less bad about feeling bad, things can get weird. All of a sudden you may find yourself being more content with less. That you’re not ordering as much crap from Amazon. That you’re not mindlessly scrolling as often. Or anxiously planning and rushing around to fill up all your time and space.
A whole new world has opened up. One that was previously unknown and invisible due to being actively suppressed by the old one.
This can be disorientating.
There are infinite benefits and possibilities in this new world. But adjusting to it can be a challenge in itself, for some more than others, as for many it doesn’t even exist.
It’s why most people choose to stick to the old one. For this reason, I think it really helps to get involved with an activity or community that explicitly involves turning toward discomfort. It could be meditation, shodo calligraphy, yoga, cold-water swimming, running, distance walking, hiking, landscape painting, writing, dancing. Whatever you’re drawn to and whatever supports the narrative that discomfort and difficulty is something that’s not only good for us, but is essential for living a balanced and joyful life.
Oh, and seeing as though you’re a part of this newsletter, you’re already an exclusive member of the world of discomfort. Welcome! It’s a pleasure to have you here.
And on that note, I hope you have an uncomfortable (well, not too uncomfortable) day!
Warmly,
Joe
P.S. Recently I wrote an article about a guy who suffered a tonne and has become an inspiration to millions around the world. He went from being severely overweight to often being named as “the world’s toughest guy”, completing three of the toughest military camps and over 60 ultra-endurance events and counting.
His story is impressive. But you don’t have to run 241 miles in 24 hours to become more familiar with suffering. That was just his way. I tried to distill what I learned from him into 8 simple lessons. Let me know what you think!
Thanks for reading!
If you enjoyed this post, click the heart down below just to let me know :) Or click the title to leave a comment on Substack! It really makes a difference.
If you were forwarded this email, RE:MIND is a newsletter that makes sense of zen, mindfulness, and meditation in the modern world.
Recalibrate your mind and inbox for greater peace, clarity, and sanity — one RE:MIND at a time.