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The way I see it, learning to be uncomfortable is beside the point; it's about finding the positives, not ignoring the negatives. If you learn to be uncomfortab
by scythe 15y ago
The way I see it, learning to be uncomfortable is beside the point; it's about finding the positives, not ignoring the negatives. If you learn to be uncomfortable, you become complacent, and don't do things to improve your life in real, tangible ways, like, say, negotiating a better salary.
If there's a problem you need to solve with a method like this, that's great, but I would hesitate to recommend that people regularly incorporate unpleasant things into their daily life for the sole sake of them being unpleasant. That ultimately leaves you with less understanding of not only how to lead a pleasant life but also of how to improve the lives of the people around you, this latter goal being the core of entrepreneurship. E.g. if you try to use nothing but `cat` to edit files, you will never design a better text editor. If you walk to work, you won't be able to contribute to advances in vehicle technology.
Ultimately I think our goal as humans is to reduce that sort of thing, not to increase it; otherwise we might as well revert to nomadic tribalism. To quote Edward Abbey:
One final paragraph of advice: do not burn yourselves out. Be as I am — a reluctant enthusiast... a part-time crusader, a half-hearted fanatic. Save the other half of yourselves and your lives for pleasure and adventure. It is not enough to fight for the land; it is even more important to enjoy it. While you can. While it’s still here. So get out there and hunt and fish and mess around with your friends, ramble out yonder and explore the forests, climb the mountains, bag the peaks, run the rivers, breathe deep of that yet sweet and lucid air, sit quietly for a while and contemplate the precious stillness, the lovely, mysterious, and awesome space. Enjoy yourselves, keep your brain in your head and your head firmly attached to the body, the body active and alive, and I promise you this much; I promise you this one sweet victory over our enemies, over those desk-bound men and women with their hearts in a safe deposit box, and their eyes hypnotized by desk calculators. I promise you this; You will outlive the bastards.
- Derbasti 15y agoI agree with you, except for > If you walk to work, you won't be able to contribute to advances in vehicle technology. Are you implying that walking to work is an 'uncomfortable' thing like taking a cold shower? I may be misunderstanding you there, but I , for one, hate sitting in a car and suffering through morning-hour traffic jams. I hate searching for a parking spot. I much rather take my bike to work. You know, not to work out, but to breathe fresh morning air for once. To enjoy the sound of birds. Riding your bike, or walking, is exactly what that nice quite of yours is recommending. You can advance your vehicle technology as far as you like, but if that vehicle will be used for a distance that you could easily walk, it will never be effort well spent.
- scythe 15y ago>Are you implying that walking to work is an 'uncomfortable' thing like taking a cold shower? I may be misunderstanding you there, but I , for one, hate sitting in a car and suffering through morning-hour traffic jams. I hate searching for a parking spot. I much rather take my bike to work. You know, not to work out, but to breathe fresh morning air for once. To enjoy the sound of birds. Riding your bike, or walking, is exactly what that nice quite of yours is recommending. No. I just needed to pull out some example. There are some situations in which driving is more pleasant than walking -- consider someone who works at a ski resort in the mountains, in the winter -- and situations in which walking is more pleasant than driving. Either way, by doing what you can to improve your living conditions you build an understanding of what "improved living conditions" might look like.