Finding Meaning in Discomfort: A Story of Perspective and Actionable Strategies
How a Hawaiian Vacation and Two Articles Helped Reframe Life's Challenges as Worthwhile
You read things when you need to read them the most.
That’s been my experience a number of times. Take this column from Rachel Feintzeig at the Wall Street Journal, for example, and the following story.
The second week of January started with a bang personally. My wife Sarah and I booked our next adventure on a weekend before the start of a new work week: A week-long trip to the Hawaiian islands of Maui and Kauai during the upcoming Mardi Gras holiday.
And then Monday morning happened.
Broken automated systems at the office. Malfunctioning data pipelines. GIS software licenses on the verge of expiring for no good reason. An arthritic flare-up for our dog that required a trip to the vet and new medication. Even my own bum knee decided to act up again.
All of these things not 24 hours after experiencing the high of booking and planning the next travel experience. How quickly life went from “it’s all coming together” to “it’s all falling apart.”
“When we have a life that has a lot of meaning and purpose, it’s often quite uncomfortable.”
— Yael Schonbrun, clinical psychologist and assistant professor at Brown University.
Whew. Much-needed perspective in that line from Feintzeig’s story.
That discomfort that you felt when those systems failed? When your data pipelines stopped piping data? The worry that your people would not be able to produce new work without those licenses?
Those were all just signs that you care about what you do. That you care about the people you do it with. And that you are living a meaningful and purposeful life.
Imagine the opposite and and how miserable that would be.
Discomfort is part of the package when you care. Things will break and go sideways on occasion. Because you care and are invested in your life, it is going to feel a certain way when it feels like it’s all falling apart.
Remember though that when you feel this discomfort, it often is a sign that you are on the right track. You are doing something important, something meaningful.
In this way, you can re-frame a life full of discomfort as a life worth living.
It turns out that I read something else on that uncomfortable Monday morning along the same lines as the WSJ story. This post about managing your team's emotional dynamic from the Harvard Business Review was full of actionable advice for dealing with discomfort on your team at the office. Turns out there is plenty in there for dealing with your own discomfort, too.
Plenty of overlap between these two stories. In particular there are four emotion-regulating strategies mentioned in the HBR article that also are echoed throughout Feintzeig's column. These strategies are:
Situation modification
Shifting attention or creating distraction
Reappraisal
Response modulation
Read more about each of these by visiting the HBR link above, and some real-world talk (besides mine!) in Rachel's column on The Wall Street Journal.
Great content Michael, keep it up!
Great quote: “When we have a life that has a lot of meaning and purpose, it’s often quite uncomfortable.”