“Western culture has things a little backwards right now. We think that if we had every comfort available to us, we’d be happy. We equate comfort with happiness. And now we’re so comfortable we’re miserable. There’s no struggle in our lives. No sense of adventure. We get in a car, we get in an elevator, it all comes easy. What I’ve found is that I’m never more alive than when I’m pushing and I’m in pain, and I’m struggling for high achievement, and in that struggle I think there’s a magic.”1
That’s a keen insight from long-distance runner Dean Karnazes. His words apply to all “adventure,” really all of life, as running and training can be a good metaphor for the real “endurance” events we call daily life. The ordinary, common, everyday activities are where we need the will to persevere and willingness to get uncomfortable.
In short: We can either be comfortable and stagnate or stretch ourselves—become uncomfortable—and grow.
We tend to think that comfort leads to happiness. It doesn’t. “Happiness” comes from growth, a deeper joy than temporal circumstances. In comes in part from making commitments and keeping them. We find a measure of joy in making progress, and especially joining others in their development. When we persevere, we grow.
For me that means hitting the pavement in search of some hills almost every morning. In reality, running is the easy part. It’s the other “endurance” events of life where we must embrace the uncomfortable: relationship tensions, hard decisions, confrontation, adversity, setbacks, each new challenge an opportunity. This is essential if we are to reject apathy.
I wonder if one reason 80%+ of people fail on their New Year’s resolutions is they remain committed to their own comfort. The love of comfort keeps them from a better adventure. People embrace apathy, which is a slow death. And a love of self-comfort keeps them for pursuing health and wholeness for the sake of others. If we are to benefit—and better yet: if others are to develop under our care and leadership—we must get uncomfortable. Seek out a measure of adversity, and train for the real adversity than will inevitably come your way.
“Nothing is more important than to learn how to maintain a life of purpose in the midst of painful adversity.”2
- Dean Karnazes in an interview with Outdoor Magazine, published online December 2006. ↩
- Timothy Keller, Walking With God Through Pain and Suffering. ↩
We’ve nicknamed our house the Greenhouse, partly because it’s green, but mostly because we hope to grow up our “starts” into healthy, thriving “plants.” A greenhouse is an optimal environment which provides everything necessary for growth. There’s food, water, shelter, and yet much more. There’s a healthy — even loving — structure and order of things, with a master gardener who ensures every plant thrives in order to “grow up” and one day grow roots down into other soil outside the safe confines of the greenhouse. It takes nurture and it takes discipline. Both are necessary in a nuanced balance. That’s the essence of “instruction,” which is really teaching. And teaching is more than telling others what to do and believe. Teaching involves a relationship; it means walking alongside others as they learn, and letting them fail in safe ways before — and so that — they succeed. Every teacher will tell you it’s hard yet wonderfully rewarding work. I am learning that good parents are teachers.
If we begin our days by staring at the one who never gave up, who was joyfully obedient to God His Father until the very end. And then follow in His steps.