Life is, By Nature, Uncomfortable

Twice yesterday, one time from a Christian source (Rick Warren in The Purpose Driven Life) and another from a Buddhist source (in meditation class), it was stated that our normal human existence is one where we are uncomfortable in our bodies. We are ill-at-ease with our emotions; we are prone to be stressed, anxious, or just uncomfortable. Yet even though the feeling of life is inherently a bit prickly, when we feel ill-at-ease we make the awkward feeling worse by thinking that we are doing something wrong, that something is wrong with us. Then we’re left with the initial emotion plus the added anxiety that the emotion is bad.

If we don’t judge the initial emotion, we are left with that emotion alone—minus the other baggage we normally place on top of it. Sitting only with the emotion is bearable. We can name it, accept it, and move on knowing that feelings and judgments we don’t like are inevitable. Therefore, we don’t need to attach a whole lot of unnecessary meaning on top of it.

M. Scott Peck starts his book, A Road Less Traveled, with, “Life is difficult…Once we truly know that life is difficult—once we truly understand and accept it—then life is no longer difficult. Because once it is accepted, the fact that life is difficult no longer matters.”

There will be ups and downs in life, but we do not need to make the downtimes worse by judging them negatively or by trying to avoid, resist, and deny the downtimes. The downtimes pass much more quickly when we realize that they are simply just part of life.