“Joy wouldn’t feel so good if it wasn’t for pain”. We appreciate comfort because we know discomfort. We appreciate gain because we know loss. We enjoy vacation because we know just how difficult it is to have a full workload. But, plan a vacation a few days too long and you’ll be missing work in no time. Just like Shakespeare said, “If all the year were playing holidays; to sport would be as tedious as to work.”
Life is undoubtedly difficult. It is comprised of disease, pain, suffering, illness, loss, broken relationships, war, disaster, and ultimately death. To top it all off, the overwhelming ignorance behind our existence and reason for being, endangers many into falling into the abyss of nihilism. On the opposite end of the spectrum, if we are lucky we get to experience love, family, community, charity, gain, friends, music, harmony, peace, and most importantly life. We only understand these aspects of life as gifts because we experience them intermittently and because we are not entitled to them. We know this because good, innocent people are deprived of so many of the things we take for granted. It is only when we see or hear of this, or even worse, experience this deprivation ourselves, that we realize just how much we take for granted.
It is my belief that the increase in anxiety and depression that we are seeing in the western world is a consequence of the fact that we aren’t comfortable with being uncomfortable. We have set up our society to maximize convenience and comfort, and in doing so have become coddled. Positive emotion has to be earned through the sacrifice of enduring something difficult. It is for this reason alone that humans cannot be happy simply through hedonism.
“Happy” isn’t what we’re searching for anyway because it’s not completely within one’s control. Your whole family can perish tomorrow and happy wouldn’t be an option. What we’re searching for is “meaning”, because meaning can be found in the most dire and horrible situations. Just ask Viktor Frankl or Alexander Solzhenitsyn, people who experienced the absolute worst of humanity, but were able to find meaning in their own suffering. Dostoevsky said once, “There is only one thing that I dread: not to be worthy of my sufferings.” I don’t know if I’ve ever read a statement so powerful, and written by someone who looked death in the face and then went on to change the world.
In the case of some of the world’s greatest martyrs this meant accepting their fate of torture and ultimate death, with dignity. It meant liberating their souls from within and refusing to let their spirit rot along with their flesh. They may not have been happy, but they found meaning in their lives. Meaning is often discovered in the process of suffering, regardless of its form.
I will never forget the first time that seed was planted in my head. I was a freshman football player at Bergen Catholic High School. The team was working out in the weight room and it was time for our “finisher”. We did a finisher at the end of every single lift, and its sole purpose was to strengthen the mind. It always took the form of some type of ab circuit or conditioning routine. It was the part of the workout every player dreaded because it pushed you to the boundaries of what you thought you were capable of.
I was always a competitive athlete with a great work ethic. I always tried to get the most out of myself, but man did I dread those finishers. I had never experienced anything quite like them. My middle school football coaches were tough on me but they never took it to the next level. The goal was always to finish the workout they told me to do within the parameters they provided. If I had to make a run in under 10 seconds I would do it. I would always compete against my teammates and try to come in first, but the finishers were different. The competition wasn’t between me and my teammates; it was between me and myself.
If i recall correctly, I think the finisher we had been doing that day was an ab circuit. These ab circuits were absolutely brutal and often times included 3 minute planks at the end of them, that is, when we were already fatigued and sore as hell. It had come to the end of the finisher and it was time to hold the ever-dreaded plank for an undisclosed time. We knew it would be long, but he never told us exactly how long. If you’ve ever done a plank then you know there are many factors you can adjust in your form to either make the plank a lot easier or more difficult. Lifting your butt high in the air takes the pressure off your core and shifts it to your shoulders, making the plank easier to hold. We were prohibited from doing so, but there might be two coaches in the weight room and 40 of us. You could get away with it.
I was holding my plank and as well as I could, and whenever I felt my core begin to burn, I would lift my butt in the air for a second or two to ease the stress. Doing this over a 2-3 minute plank makes the exercise significantly easier than holding it in good form for the same length of time. My goal was to complete the workout. I was doing the same thing as everyone else.If it were a competition, we were all winning, so long as no one dropped to their knees. At least that’s how I saw it at the time. As I was trying to find a way to finish the plank and call it a day, I remember one of my coaches yelling “Life begins when you step outside of your comfort zone.”
I know what you’re thinking, you’ve heard that cheesy saying a thousand times already. I don’t know when or where you heard it, but I can tell you that hearing that said as a 14 year old kid in the middle of a plank, doing whatever it took to just get through it, it left a permanent impression in my brain. As cliche as the saying is, it was a revelation for me. It made me realize that every time I started to feel pain or discomfort, my first instinct was to get rid of it. It was at that point that I finally realized the purpose of those finishers was for us to lean into the pain. The goal wasn’t just to get through the workout, it was to destroy the workout. The overall goal was to embrace the pain and overcome it. By refusing to face that pain and discomfort, I was only cheating myself.
Yes, we were training to become better football players. More importantly, we were conditioning our minds to face stress, pain, and discomfort, and overcome it. We were preparing ourselves for life. The battle was not between myself and any competitor. Nor was it between myself and any particular challenge. The battle was and always will be between myself and that part of my brain that seeks comfort and complacency.
When we put ourselves in uncomfortable situations, whether that be attempting to learn a new skill or participating in high intensity exercise, the more comfortable we get with being uncomfortable. We become more resilient. We prepare ourselves to take on whatever the world may throw at us. Not only do we become stronger and more competent, but we also learn to enjoy every aspect of life. I know myself that when I start by morning off with a lift and a run, the rest of the day seems easy to me. The hard part is out of the way. What could possibly be more difficult than what I just voluntarily put myself through? I feel accomplished, confident, and ready to take on anything. The reference point of emotion I have started my day with consists of a ton of stress, so every emotion felt in comparison to that is more positive than it would have been had I not done the workout.
In a world where everything is designed to be ergonomic, we are all individually responsible for taking our daily dose of suffering ourselves. As the great David Goggins himself says “Do something you hate every day.” In suffering we find meaning, we build resilience, and we learn to experience joy. When the time comes, be worthy of your sufferings.
