Month: May 2020

Comfort in Discomfort

Along a beach in California, a strange occurrence repeats itself, time and again.

Young men, dressed in full combat fatigues, lay on the beach, just beyond the water’s edge. Waves of salt water wash over the men, as they lay there, motionless.

These young men are Navy SEAL trainees, who are in the midst of an intense physical regimen — including long runs and swims. Lying on the beach might sound like a welcome respite from all this activity. But the practice is known as Surf Torture.

Why? Because, the ocean temperatures in California are chilly, to say the least. And staying motionless while that cold water washes over one’s body is no easy feat.

And that is precisely the point.

For if the trainees are going to take on some of the military’s most advanced missions, they will need to adapt to extreme conditions. They will need to take refuge in inhospitable locations.

They will need to find comfort in discomfort.

We are not all Navy SEALs.

We don’t all get sent abroad to risk our lives in covert missions. We don’t all need to leave our families behind for months at a time, missing holidays and birthdays. We don’t all have our jobs turned into documentaries and Hollywood movies.

And of course, many of us don’t have the stomach and stamina to do all these things — even if we wanted to. There is a persistent dropout rate in the Navy SEAL training program for a reason.

But we do have one thing in common with these elite warriors. We also must reckon with discomfort.

Maybe we won’t experience anything as visceral as having cold water wash over us. But over time, we will continually find ourselves in uncomfortable situations. And we must learn to come to terms with that reality.

This is evident in times of crisis. After a hurricane or tornado, we might spend days with no electricity in our homes. After a deadly attack, we might contend with beefed-up security measures. After the onset of a virus, we might find our social interactions altered by face masks, gloves and distancing requirements.

In each case, the signs of change are visceral, and the scars of the trauma are fresh. Comfort is a fading memory, now beyond our grasp.

And yet, this discomfort is a hallmark of gentler times as well. For even when the moment feels less dire, things rarely go exactly as we wish. Bad weather might ruin our outdoor activities. A technological issue at work could get us off schedule. We might get a stain on our favorite white shirt.

These issues are far less universal than the ones we must contend with in a crisis. But they still sting when we encounter them.

For our fantasy vision of how life should go is shattered. And we’re left to pick up the pieces.

People love to classify things.

Classification allows us to delineate. It gives us the means to create order out of chaos.

So, we classify students by academic grades. We classify taxpayers by their income bracket. And we classify segments of society by their hobbies and interests.

But what started as a basic tool has gotten out of hand. For now, we even classify the troubles we face.

Case in point? The prevalence of the term First World Problems. We hear this phrase all over these days.

This is an underhanded slight. One that serves as a reminder that things could be far worse.

It’s not ideal when our washing machine breaks down, for instance. But how bad is this inconvenience? Particularly when you consider there are people in Africa who don’t have access to clean water at all.

The everyday issues people face in the so-called third world are severe. Our issues, by contrast,  are merely First World Problems.

It’s a nifty argument. A more sophisticated cousin to such tough-love sayings as Toughen up, buttercup! and Don’t cry over spilled milk.

But I don’t think it works.

For comparing one’s suffering to another doesn’t make the discomfort vanish. It simply hides it behind a layer of guilt and self-loathing.

Our issues still matter to us. They still frustrate us in the moment. And even though we can generally access solutions to these problems, such solutions still require sacrifice.

Dismissing concerns like these because of their scope — or our privilege — won’t help us adapt to the situation at hand. And adapting is precisely what we need to do.

Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you respond to it.

Chuck Swindoll’s iconic line has practically become a rallying cry for those who define themselves through resilience.

But while it’s easy to find a spark from words like these, it’s harder to navigate the mechanics of change. Particularly when those mechanics feature prolonged discomfort.

We’re wired to treat discomfort like an obstacle. We act as if it’s a tunnel we must get through to find the glory on the other side.

This is why we seek to mitigate discomfort. This is why keep searching for the light in the distance.

But the world doesn’t work this way.

Discomfort doesn’t just appear or disappear in an instant. It’s omnipresent.

Masking discomfort with vices or delusions just won’t work long-term. We need to learn to live with it.

In fact, we must go further than mere coexistence. We must do what the Navy SEALs do. We must find comfort in discomfort.

This doesn’t require a trip to the California coastline or grueling physical exercise. But it does require some mental gymnastics.

It requires us to stop opining about how things were, or how we wished they would be. A Comfort in Discomfort mindset instead requires us to accept how things are — good, bad or ugly. Then, and only then, can we be expected to adapt accordingly.

This shift is quite a leap of faith. Even after years of trying, I have not been able to master it fully.

But I still hope to get there someday. And so should we all.

For once we let go of our dashed expectations of utopia, we can shed the weight of anxiety and longing. And, in doing this, we set ourselves up to thrive in nearly any landscape.

This is a future worth striving for. But we can only get there by going all in. By finding not only acceptance, but also comfort in discomfort.

Are you up for the challenge?

The Gray

Ain’t no road too long, when you meet in the middle.

This sentiment comes from an old country song. And it’s seemed to fade with the passing of the years.

As time marches on, we find ourselves drawn to the edges ever more. We dig in our heels, fighting tooth and nail over our positions and beliefs. We take an all-or-none approach.

This has long been a hallmark of competition. But it’s become embedded in our views on work, parenting, politics, religion, and even behavioral norms.

All too often, we frame these hallmarks of life in two camps. Good and bad. Or right and wrong.

And when we do this, we claim that decisions on how to proceed should be clear and evident.

But we delude ourselves.

For the world is not just darkness and light. It’s brimming with shades of gray.

There are few more frustrating types of weather than fog.

Clouds suspended in the sky can bring us shade, rain or even snow. But when those clouds reach ground level, they bring nothing but trouble.

Fog impacts our ability to move about safely. And it fills the atmosphere with a drab grayish hue.

We loathe fog because it robs us of what we seek — vision and clarity. And yet, it encapsulates how to understand our world in its realest form.

For life is full of ambiguity. Of shifting conditions and patterns.

This constant flux can lead to differing perceptions. And those perceptions make it more difficult to find consensus.

Those clear choices we believe in are often not so straightforward. They might help us, but hurt others. They might reduce our risk, but also limit our reward.

The best way to combat this is to embrace the gray area between those choices.

The most prudent way forward is to accept compromise.

Compromise is difficult.

Many leaders have mastered this discipline. But, when left to our own devices, we fail to follow in their footsteps.

For compromise requires us to step away from our picture of how things should be. It compels us to accept a solution that might seem watered down.

Yes, we can get much accomplished by leaning in to compromise. But at what cost?

For when we give, we allow others to take. And when we relax our standards, we can slam the door on our own rationality.

If we make a concession only one time, it shatters our standard of equity. It opens the door for others to question our overall judgment.

After all, why would we budge this one time, and not another?

Questions like these are difficult to answer. They threaten our reputation. They leave us vulnerable.

And so, we’d rather leave them unasked. We’d prefer to avoid the subject of compromise altogether.

But easing our discomfort is hurting our progress. And that is only leading to more pain.

In times of normalcy, we can get away with all-or-nothing thinking.

But in a crisis, the veil is lifted on our shortsightedness. And this can cause a reckoning.

Suddenly, our ideals no longer work. In an instant, our economic and social conventions are thrown into freefall.

In the fray of such carnage, we feel we have two options. We can stick to our hardened principles, enduring the suffering that is sure to follow. Or we can jump ship to opposing principles, forcing us to revisit our core beliefs.

But a third option is available. Just as it always has been.

We can embrace the gray area.

We can compromise. We can adapt. We can do what it takes to rise to the occasion.

In the context of a pandemic, this might mean accepting a government handout — even if we are normally accustomed to earning our keep. Or it might mean assessing the risks of activities in public settings, instead of barricading ourselves at home for months on end.

Neither of these options are a slam dunk, of course. In a society so fixated on precedent and liability, these tactics can go against the grain.

But the alternatives are untenable. Sticking to our principles for self-sufficiency in such a crisis can cause us to go hungry or bankrupt. And fully abandoning our principles for safety means putting ourselves — and everyone around us— at risk for a different kind of pain.

We must be willing to make an exception. To find a compromise in the gray area between the extremes. This solution won’t be perfect, but it will be best suited for the situation at hand.

How far should we venture into the mist?

How much of the gray area can we endure before we lose our way entirely?

It’s hard to know for sure. After all, the gray is ambiguous by nature.

But there are two pinnacles that can guide us — our curiosity and the moment.

Our curiosity is the latent driver. It unleashes all the possibilities we might someday explore. Maybe these possibilities are our second best options. Or maybe they’re opportunities we’ve yet to explore. Either way, we’re not fully opposed to them.

And the moment is the impetus. It’s the spark that causes us to change things up. To break the hardened rules we’ve set for ourselves and explore the possibilities instead.

When these two forces combine, we explore the gray. We can test the waters without losing our identity. We can find the reward without enduring much of the risk.

This is evident in a crisis, when the path to our survival is paramount. But it should also be apparent in more ordinary times.

Indeed, our curiosity is constantly lingering. It’s just up to us to conjure it.

And the moment is within our grasp as well. The inspiration lies within.

We don’t have to wait for our lives to get turned upside down, just to shake things up.

After all, the world is constantly evolving. Why shouldn’t we?

So, let’s adopt a new mindset.

Let’s stop hiding behind rigid principles. Let’s drop our fear of double standards. And let’s live in a more adaptable and sustainable way.

The gray area is not no-man’s land. It’s the key to our destiny.

Let’s harness it.

The Importance of Place

Every evening, I watch the sun go down.

Ostensibly.

For it is true that I’m generally sitting at my dining room table at that hour. It is true that I am facing west. And it is even true that I am at a high enough of a vantage point to readily watch the sun disappear beyond the horizon.

But for all those benefits, there is one obstacle — one thing keeping me from watching the western skies turn into a brilliant array of faded light.

That obstacle is a wall.

The western wall of my dining room is well decorated — with mementos, a grad school diploma and a photo of my grandfather’s training unit in the United States Navy. But that wall and those mementos form a venerable cliff blocking the view of anything behind it.

Of course, this wall is not the enemy. There are more than a dozen other walls beyond it before you get to the western face of my building. And even if I lived in the westernmost unit, the next building over would still block the view of anything else.

Yes, it seems like an at-home view of the sunset is out of the question — for myself and for all my neighbors.

And so, as the afternoon fades and the twilight sets in, I am forced to choose. Go somewhere else to catch the sunset, or simply imagine its presence beyond my line of sight.

All too often, I go for that second option.

 

Watching the sun set is not an essential part of life.

It pales in comparison to our needs for food, shelter and communal belonging.

And yet, many are enthralled by this experience. Just as many others are transfixed by the view of constellations in the clear night sky.

Observing such majesty with our own eyes reminds us of the vastness of the universe. And of just how small we are in comparison.

It is sobering in the best possible way. For it makes us aware of another concept — that of the importance of place.

This revelation is critical.

For what we do in life matters. Who we build that life with matters. But where we build that life also matters.

Such decisions are out of our hands initially. We grow up where we grow up — the choice of our parents, our guardians or circumstance. We don’t have much say in the matter.

But once we reach adulthood, we get to choose where we pitch our tent. We have some semblance of our own destiny — at least when geography is involved.

There is power in this version of independence. But only if we’re savvy enough to recognize it.

Something strange has happened recently.

With a deadly pandemic raging, much of the world has shut down. Entire countries have gone into quarantine for months at a time. And even in the United States — a nation without a federal lockdown — many people have limited their travel to a 10 mile radius of their homes.

These changes have had profound impacts on many aspects of our lives. One of those has been our understanding of the concept of place.

What was once an oversight is now facing a reckoning. For regardless how we normally feel about our home, we’ve been spending more time in it than usual. And that means we’re scrutinizing it more than ever before.

I consider myself fortunate in this endeavor. I might not have a sunset view, but I have a home I love — one that’s quiet and serene. The ability to sit on my patio, watching the wind blow through the trees and hearing the birds chirp, is an absolute godsend.

Others have not been so lucky.

Perhaps their home was an afterthought. Most of their time was spent out in the world of social interaction. Their house or apartment was simply a place to sleep and change clothes.

Perhaps other circumstances — job opportunities, financial situations or family concerns — had forced them to live in a place they didn’t desire to. Home wasn’t an exercise in self-expression. It was a symbol of their obligation.

In either case, the abrupt change to the world as we knew it must have been jarring. In an instant, their communities were forcibly separated, leaving them confined to a location they were none too fond of.

Yet, whether we love our home base or we loathe it, we now have no choice but to come to terms with it. For the world of whizzing distractions is gone for the foreseeable future. And so, there are no more convenient excuses for us to ignore what’s right in front of our nose.

At the start of the year, I made a pledge. I would walk or run at least a mile every single day. In sunshine and rain, bitter cold and searing heat, I would take the time to step out into the elements.

This was initially a ploy to improve my health. I had all too often wavered between times of intense workouts and sedentary days on the couch. I needed to commit to a plan that would keep me active.

The onset of a global pandemic threw a wrench into this plan. Suddenly, I had to change the way I strolled about in order to avoid getting sick.

But once I got used to wearing a mask and evading other people on the sidewalk, I realized how precious this ritual had become.

Not only did it get me out of my home — often for the only time all day — but it also allowed me to discover the little things that were all around me. The pattern of the stones on a retaining wall. The scurrying of rabbits and squirrels. The buzzing of high tension wires overhead.

None of these details were particularly picturesque or awe-inspiring. That’s probably why I ignored them in the first place. But now that I wasn’t shuffling around town for work, school or leisure — now that I was confined to these short forays in my neighborhood — I found a strange sense of identity within them.

These were the hallmarks of my corner of the world. They provided the backdrop to my vantage point of the world.

These sights, these sounds — they were my version of place. They were integral to my where.

I firmly believe that all of us can build this kind of connection with our surroundings. And indeed, that we need to.

For the more we stare at the horizon, the more we lose sight of what’s nearby. The more we yearn for liberation, the more we feel the walls closing in.

This is all bad enough in small doses. But over a long enough time horizon, it can be downright catastrophic.

Still, it doesn’t have to be this way.

Our mind can provide us salvation from this maelstrom. A change in our perspective can be the antidote to our despair.

And it all starts by recognizing the importance of place. Of fully understanding our whereabouts and making peace with them.

So, as we forge forward, let’s not neglect all that surrounds us. Let’s embrace it instead, with an open mind and an open heart.

For whether it’s beautiful or it’s mundane, our setting — our place — matters in our story. Don’t let it get erased.

The Blame Game

It’s all your fault. It’s all your fault.

If you were to go to a college hockey game in recent years, you were likely to hear the home fans chanting this at the opposing goalie for letting a puck fly by.

In a vacuum, this chant seems infantile. After all, the scoreboard already tells the story.

Why rub salt in the wound? Why make the goalie feel even worse for coming up short?

There is no rational explanation. And yet, the chant has lived on for years.

Some of this has to do with home ice advantage. The chant adds an element of intimidation to the proceedings, making it even more daunting for the visitors to come away victorious.

But a lot of it comes from a human obsession. An obsession in finding someone to blame.

There are few more compelling figures in our society than the scapegoat.

We worship the heroes and abhor the villains. But we depend on the scapegoats.

For these figures provide us a target for our attention. A release valve for our exasperation. A convenient excuse for why things veer off course.

Yes, we need an explanation for each hardship we face. A foil for the moments when our visions of perfection eviscerate into the murkiness of reality.

So, we look for somebody to blame.

This urge to point the finger is so prevalent that it’s practically muscle memory. We instinctively turn toward its seductive glow time and again.

At the moment we find our scapegoat, we feel relief. Our angst, confusion and vulnerability give way to the rush of adrenaline of grabbing the pitchforks and torches.

Of course, nothing on the surface has changed. The circumstances we are facing are just as they were.

But now we have a cause to rally around. A rationale for feelings of renewal.

All while someone else is left to shoulder the burden of our suffering.

There’s a prevalent school of thought. One that equates finding fault with serving karmic justice.

This is a fallacy.

For justice is blind to bias. It does not care about our feelings, or bend to the whims of our desires.

No, true justice is only about one thing: Balance.

Now, some may argue that apportioning blame restores balance. That transferring the burden of responsibility to someone at the origin of our troubles gets the universe back on track.

But reality is rarely this straightforward.

Indeed, the line between accountability and vindictive rage is often perilously narrow. And in the fog of distress, we can easily cross to the wrong side of the divide.

And so, scapegoats find themselves culpable for violations of standards that defy reality. Or wrongly accused altogether.

These are terrifying situations. They are outcomes that we don’t want to find ourselves facing.

And so, we hedge.

We hold back. We play it safe. We do all we can to reduce the risk of blowback.

This defangs us as leaders and innovators. But it also takes the worst case scenario off the table.

Or so we think.

On September 11, 2001, the world changed.

Millions watched in horror as two hijacked airplanes crashed into the World Trade Center in New York City, and another plane crashed into the Pentagon near Washington.

It was the darkest day of my life — and I’m sure I’m not alone in that fact. But the days that followed weren’t much brighter.

There was an uncomfortable stillness in the air. Anxiety and uncertainty were everywhere you turned.

Then, President Bush announced that America was going after those who brought this evil to our shores. Less than a month after the attacks, the United States Army invaded Afghanistan.

At the time of the invasion, it was hard to find many who were opposed to it. We had all just lived through an attack. If we didn’t go after those who were to blame, we would invite another act of terror.

And yet, two decades later, the results of that decision are less clear cut.

The masterminds of the 9/11 attacks are just about all dead or captured by now. And yet, the war in Afghanistan wears on.

What started as an action of blame has morphed into a costly quagmire. Some of the participants in it today were not even alive when the conflict started.

Pointing the finger took us further than we’d ever hoped to go.

As I write this, we are in a new kind of crisis.

A virus with no cure has killed tens of thousands of people across America. And the mass quarantines meant to contain it have caused 30 million people to lose their jobs.

The pain and strife are catastrophic. And the devastation lies on multiple fronts.

As battle through this uncertainty, we focus our attention on one question. Who’s to blame?

Some have pointed to China, where the virus first erupted. Others have pointed to political leaders, who didn’t act quick enough to contain early cases. Others still have blamed government agencies, who botched the rollout of testing for the virus when it was still in the nascent stages of its spread.

The blame game provides us with a convenient distraction from the despair of the present reality. It provides us with prominent punching bags for us to lob our ire at.

But it is wholly misguided.

For viruses are forces of nature. They do not neatly follow the laws of human governance.

This is why there have been pandemics before. And it’s why there will be pandemics in the future.

Even if everyone we point the finger at had acted optimally, there would still have been carnage. There is no conniving terrorist in a faraway cave that wrought this devastation. Nature itself did.

And so, apportioning blame is a futile exercise. Especially in the midst of the storm.

Crises are painful. But they are powerful teachers.

And one prevailing lesson, proven time and again, that the rush to blame is futile.

Yes, accountability is important. Sometimes, it is even a matter of life and death. But it shouldn’t be our first order of business.

We must start by righting the ship. By mitigating the damage and adjusting to the circumstances. By putting survival first.

Only after the fog has lifted should we concern ourselves with determining the blame. With the crisis in our rearview, we can objectively determine who should foot the bill. Or if anyone should at all.

This truth should be self-evident in times of tribulation. In fact, it should be standard procedure even when we’re not on the brink.

It still can be.

So, let’s make it happen.

Let’s learn from our mistakes. And let’s put the blame game behind us.

There are far better uses of our time and energy. Let’s unlock them.