Comfortable With Being Uncomfortable

*Originally published on my Wordpress blog 11.16.2021

 With COVID restrictions starting to lift, I am cautiously looking at possible travel adventures for 2022 or 2023.  Right before COVID, I had enjoyed a two week winter vacay in a tropical place but the actual act of traveling there was close to miserable. I wrote a piece about it here and blamed it on the airlines and their greed. I doubt that the pandemic changed anything and I was pretty bummed about how that industry can make it difficult to travel comfortably.

A long year of enforced SIP has revived my desire to travel.  I am still, however, thinking about the whole uncomfortable part of travel. I read something recently about solo travel. The piece articulated many of the lessons that could be learned via travel and especially via solo travel. One that stuck out for me was that through travel, you learn to get comfortable with being uncomfortable.

Let’s look at that for a minute. Comfortable with being uncomfortable. My first response is, ”Oh, I know all about getting comfortable with being uncomfortable.”  That hasn’t been an experience much for me in recent years except in matters of physical health. In those post surgery days that’s about all one can do is to get comfortable with being uncomfortable. No, I am thinking more of my younger years. There was a time when I had little disposable income and lots of challenges in finding affordable housing. Some of my housing arrangements were less than stellar but they were better than the street.  There were a number of work related circumstances where I had to be comfortable with being uncomfortable. It was my job often to sit with people who were not happy. It’s not a comfortable place to be.  I, however, not only got used to it, I got good at it. I was a resource for conflict resolution and was able to handle awkward situations.

In general, I think I am someone who does not need to have the conditions be perfect. I am annoyed with air travel because so much of it is physically uncomfortable and emotionally stressful. I think a lot of that distress is because passengers are generally jerked around and treated like idiots of all flavors. For me, it takes patience and perspective  to get comfortable with being uncomfortable when it comes to travel. Is it worth it?

Is it worth it? That is the question of the day. I’ve decided that it’s worth it after the fact. Travel isn’t always fun in the moment, that I will admit. The hassles, the uncertainty, the lack of the familiar, the physical weariness - all of those can make for hard times. The uncertainty and the lack of familiar though can also make for some “in the moment” fun and exciting times  However, the reason I want to travel is not just for the moment. I am also traveling for my own future self. Travel will always enlarge my view of the world. It shows me another way of being. It gives me a chance to step entirely out of my life and be someone else in some different life. It gives me the chance to view my life from afar. The post travel time can be just about as important and significant as the actual days of travel. I remember returning after spending several exciting months in Europe and South Korea in 1976.  I stood at the San Fransisco airport and marveled at the lack of a military presence (South Korea was flooded with military at that time). I remember feeling as if my feet were rooted in the ground, that I had come home. I felt grateful to be there. There was nothing wrong or bad with the places I had been and I had met many wonderful people. But, nothing felt better in that moment than to be home.

I view travel as an opportunity for personal growth. Frankly, there are many situations in the realm of “personal growth” that are far from comfortable. I suppose that’s what keeps some people from experiencing change and subsequent expansion. It’s hard work. It’s work that might not feel worth it in the moment. In the case of travel, it’s in the days, weeks, months after the adventure stops that the growth might truly be measured.  But the growth wouldn’t exist if the traveler didn’t step completely out of their comfort zone. Growth isn’t the end all and the be all but, for me, it does make life more exciting and rewarding.  I appreciate the shifts in me, the expansion of self, that come with risk and travel is one risk after another.

Getting comfortable with being uncomfortable? Maybe that’s just the task of human beings overall. People talk about wanting to be happy but sometimes in order to reach that place some hard times have to be accommodated and/or endured. Damn! That’s the thing about life. It is complex, confusing, and unpredictable. In short, it can be uncomfortable. Learning to accept the bold clamor of uncertainty and disappointment is one way, I suppose, of getting comfortable with being uncomfortable. Now, can you tell me, preferably in three easy steps, how to do that?