“Given that I’ve been taught since childhood to sit in chairs for long periods , my present discomfort is easy to tolerate.” When I heard these words in Martha Beck’s book “Way of integrity” I immediately paused the audio — then I rewinded 15 seconds and played it again; six times, to feel the comfort of hearing something that feels true. She explains that the discomfort is not the problem; what concerns her is that we all claim to be comfortable when what we mean to say is that we are tolerating the discomfort and we are used to that — it barely registers.
The words resonated with me because I struggle with the fine-ness of a privileged life. I wake up to sunshine in a beautiful room wrapped in beige cotton, gazing at a crisp white dresser and bright green tangle of Pothos on each side. The view has an eery similarity to the stranger’s Pinterest board I found last summer. I feel a dull neutrality. But I smile so the Universe knows I’m not ungrateful and doesn’t take it away from me.
This fear of perceived ingratitude and tendency to test up to — and not beyond! — toleration may have something to do with my current confusion — why I woke up in the cliche quarter-life-crisis mode asking, “Do I even like New York?”
All the self-help books I’ve ravenously consumed since I woke up feeling stale in my beautiful Pinterest apartment have served me this solution, brim with pride and a hearty “you’re welcome!”: simply risk it all and barrel toward what it is you truly want with all your might. There is no fear, no possibility of failure when you are pursuing that which reflects your truest nature or your deepest singular desire.
Unless you’re fully dressed and ready to go and can’t for the life of you find your deepest singular desire.
I find myself faking aha! moments, trying to trick the universe into thinking I have finally come up with the thing, and here I am on my way to achieving it… But of course, it takes a bit more than a skit to generate the steamrolling will we need to pull ourselves from the hot tar of comfort and societal acceptance and sprint into the fear and shame of uncertainty.
These lines at least give me hope — that perhaps I am unable to identify what it is I want because of this inability to distinguish tolerable from wonderful and worthy, and if I can work on dismantling that, I will get closer to knowing what my “what” is.
I wonder what separates those of us stuck at the “what” stage, from those who struggle with the “how.” What do we all have in common?
