Comfort Is An Illusion

We all love comfort. Wealth gives us comfort. We work hard for a comfortable life - whether it’s for ourselves or for those we love.

But comfort is actually an illusion - an illusion that we shouldn’t be sucked into; an illusion that we should not become slaves of.

A girl friend of mine who is also a mother of a one-year-old boy said on her Facebook status,

If you love your kids, don’t raise them to become slaves of comfort.

Kids these days don’t understand why we have to struggle in life, why we have to live really simply, why we don’t consume the finest things in life we could afford and have as much fun as we possibly can.

It is because…
comfort makes us weak.
comfort makes us reckless.
comfort ropes us into becoming its slaves.

Once we’ve become slaves of comfort, we become unhappy when life starts to struggle; we become prone to unhappiness and misery which make us become resistant to happiness.

When we are slaves of comfort, we never know when enough comfort is enough. We keep wanting more. We keep seeking for more. We never feel satisfied.

But if we train our mind to be conscious of this - knowing when enough is enough and when we should stop demanding more comfort out of life - then we will be able to handle anything life throws at us. We become prone to happiness and be resistant to misery.

Don’t lose yourself to the world of comfort.

At one point in my life I was extremely broke. I had to face the harsh truth of life - what it’s like to struggle to pay rent and bills.

Two thoughts came to my mind;

1) I could borrow some money from my parents and friends.
2) I could give this struggling life a go.

I picked the latter as I wanted to test if I could really survive.

It was tough - real tough for about half a year. However, I really enjoyed the process because it made me realize that I am actually capable of living uncomfortably. My mind got stronger.

From that point on I lost my fear of failure because the fear of failure is actually the fear of having to live an uncomfortable life. But I survived. I was fine. I now have no fear because I know that no matter what happens in life, I will find a way to survive. Moreover, the uncomfortable period of my life actually enabled me to search for happiness from within, rather than from external sources.

I liked the new mentality I adopted so much that I aimed to push myself into the habit of living with less - no shopping, no taxi’s (only public transport and walking), mostly eating in and staying in. Because I had to be as stingy as possible with my money, I started to find “free things” to do - things that I could enjoy without having to spend any cent. I started to read more, write more, go to the park and the beach more often and just enjoy the nature, and go to Entrepreneur Meetups to meet new people instead of going out partying.

As a result, I become happier from within. I don’t need external factors to make me happy. Reading makes me happy. Writing makes me happy. Catching up with close friends and family makes me happy. Cooking makes me happy. Walking through the park makes me happy. People watching makes me happy. I don’t need a lot of comfort to make me happy.

Sometimes the uncomfortable things in life are there to teach us lessons because to go through a change of habit, we need to feel uncomfortable. 

- Mo Seetubtim

Give it a try if you can.
Learn to live with less.
Become comfortable with living uncomfortably.
Then you’ll realize that there’s more to life than finding comfort.
Because after all, comfort is just an illusion.