How Resistance to Inconvenience is Ruining Your Life
After reading the book The Comfort Crisis it came to my attention that choosing comfort and convenience is causing me to make smaller choices in my life. Is it doing the same to you?
My dad has many wonderful qualities, but the one that has always perplexed me the most is his lack of resistance to inconvenience. Someone wants to meet downtown during rush hour? Sure! He doesn’t mind. An event he wants to go to is two hours away? Not a second thought. Someone needs something super last minute at the store and they’re insisting nobody needs to run out to get it? He already has his keys in his hand and is going to grab it.
The man is not deterred by inconvenience in the slightest. I admire this quality because over the years I’ve noticed my own aversion to inconvenience growing. I don’t want to drive 40 minutes across town to see friends. I don’t want to plan a group trip because I know it will take a lot of coordination. I don’t want to go get dinner downtown when I know parking will be difficult to find.
This increased sensitivity to inconvenience is making me live a smaller life. I am making smaller, more convenient choices that don’t align with my best, fullest life. I read the book The Comfort Crisis recently and it made me acknowledge the ways comfort was trapping me. We are creatures who seek comfort, we like predictability, but I’m beginning to see why they say short-term comfort often results in long-term discomfort.
Spending too much money to treat yourself is a short-term comfort with long-term discomfort.
Isolating socially is a short-term comfort with long-term discomfort.
Eating only comfort foods is a short-term comfort with long-term discomfort.
Avoiding a hard conversation is a short-term comfort with long-term discomfort.
I have been making really convenient choices for myself at the cost of what is on the other side of inconvenience (all the good stuff).
I think that the ability to feel discomfort and inconvenience and then do something anyways is a necessary skill for success. It’s mental toughness, it’s self-control, it’s proof that you don’t only take the road of least resistance.
In honor of no longer letting inconvenience be enough of a reason not to do something, I am doing the following:
+ Actually trying to plan something for my birthday. I don’t know why planning an adult birthday makes me feel so shy! I think it’s because it’s kind of vulnerable. Like will you guys come over and celebrate me? And I have great friends! I don’t think that they would hesitate to do so for a second, I’m just kind of bashful about asking.
+ I’m going to get dinner in downtown Seattle. We never go downtown because it’s always a fiasco finding parking, but forget it, the lasagna at The Pink Door (by Pike’s Place) is worth the effort.
+ Navarre and I are going to plan a trip down to Portland to see some friends. We are never going to look at each other and say, “you know what sounds fun after a long week? Driving six hours,” but we love these friends! And it’s worth taking a trip down to spend some quality time with them.
If I’m being honest, this resistance to inconvenience didn’t really start to flare up for me until COVID. Before that, I lived in Chicago and had no problem going anywhere or doing anything. I was on trains, in ubers, walking, biking- you name it. Nothing was too far or inconvenient. Then the pandemic hit and I leaned waaay harder into my introverted, homebody side. I developed a bunch of indoor habits and routines where I used to have outdoor habits and routines. I love my life, but I can tell that I am in need of more outdoor activities.
I will also say that urban design and the walkability of Chicago made it ten times easier and more convenient to do things. Suburbs and the need for cars to get places adds an additional barrier to doing many things that used to just be a fifteen minute walk in the city. (I’ll save my full urban design rant for another time though.)
I hope you all have a wonderful weekend and thank you for thinking about this with me <3 Now, get out there and do something inconvenient!
Yours,
Emily Ballesteros
Agree, covid lifestyle really lowered tolerance to inconvenience.
My favourite inconvenience: taking an ice bath :) 🥶