Embracing Process

I’m starting to feel the pressure now. I’m using you, dear reader, to hold me accountable for committing to submit an entry here once a week. It’s a real challenge. I spent a bunch of time tinkering on my first post. I was able to dedicate more time to it because my fear had me stalling. But now, for blog number two, I only have a week. Or really, I have 2 days since I procrastinated all week and cursed myself for taking on this challenge.

One of the most valuable life lessons I’ve learned is that I need to get comfortable with being uncomfortable. Growth is so uncomfortable, but life in general comes with inevitable discomfort, even if you’re not growing. Whether we like it or not, life finds ways to kick our asses. Somehow, voluntarily making ourselves uncomfortable seems to makes us better equipped to handling the unavoidable discomforts and conflicts life provides. I guess strengthening our discomfort “muscle” (the ability to deal with discomfort) is a practical way to become more capable in handling unforeseen hardship.

WALL-E

I don’t mean for this to sound shaming in any way, but we are pretty spoiled these days. I often think of that movie WALL-E. If you haven’t seen it, you should, but allow me to give you the pertinent information. It’s a dystopian society in the future (movie was released in 2008) where humans have abandoned Earth (which they covered in trash) in order to live on this Earth size spaceship. The humans no longer really interact with each other face to face, or even walk, because they spend 24 hours a day on these beds/recliner chairs/floating vehicles with screens.

Do you see what I’m getting at? Smart phones are so amazing for so many things, but they also scare the shit out of me when I think about the direction in which human beings are headed. If we don’t want to become some version of the people in WALL-E, which is absolutely the trajectory we are currently on, we have to push ourselves to be uncomfortable at times. 

The reason I say we are spoiled is because for a lot of us, making ourselves uncomfortable could be as simple as being in an unairconditioned environment, taking a walk, or even just standing up. I can’t believe how often I wake up feeling like I wish I could just stay in bed all day and not face the world outside my safe bedroom, and I seriously have no reason to feel that way.

This is why I am forcing myself to take on challenges like writing this blog. Some people are really good at challenging themselves. They like pushing themselves, and demanding they put their full effort into everything they do. I was never one of those people, but mainly out of fear, I decided to try and become one.

I first came across the phrase, “get comfortable being uncomfortable” in the world of athletics, but I think it can be applied in every area of life. A perfect analogy I have heard many times that illustrates the importance of discomfort, is the process of a caterpillar emerging from it’s cocoon as a butterfly. Without getting too far into the details, the idea is, when the caterpillar is transforming within the cocoon, it’s essentially a pile of mush. If you were to cut open the cocoon in an attempt to release the butterfly, you are killing the creature. The difficult process this living thing must endure to fight it’s way out of it’s cocoon is precisely the act that turns it from a pile of mush into a strong and healthy butterfly.

What if this easy living we have created for ourselves, in which we are always in a controlled 70 degree Fahrenheit environment, insulated from uncomfortable weather, provided with nonstop entertainment accessible in the palm of our hands – is preventing us from becoming butterflies. As much as I’d like to avoid stress and discomfort, I can’t ignore this desire to prevent myself from turning into a passive pile of mush.

I am not striving for perfection in anything. Perfectionism is too paralyzing for me. That’s why I’ve resolved not to become too precious about these posts. The idea is to be in process, not to achieve a certain end goal.

I’m not bloggin so I can become the greatest writer of my generation. I’m doing it in the hopes of maintaining my ability to write and share ideas. I am challenging my ability to be vulnerable.

Running might be the most uncomfortable thing I voluntarily inflict upon myself, and I promise you, I am definitely not running to win any races. I run so that I can continue to run. I almost never want to go for a run, but I always always always feel gratitude at some point during my run, that I have the ability to move myself through this world.

When I feel overwhelmed, losing sight of the importance of process, in favor of needing to see results, I climb to the top of the hill I live on. I’m speaking literally here. I live in Jerusalem where there are plenty of hills. I love the texture of this type of landscape in comparison to the flats of New Jersey where I spent the first 26 years of my life.

Being able to see miles and miles out in front of me, from the hilltops, shifts my perspective on life in a very profound way. It reminds me that I am a mere blip on this ball of life we inhabit. It reminds me that like the hills, I just need to keep rolling, on and on. In doing so, in becoming a person in constant process, I spread my existence over time and space, and am part of something much bigger. Most importantly, I’m actively contributing to creating some shape, or form, or expression of being.