It is two days post Hurricane Irene.
If you talk to enough folks, you can detect disappointment in some Northeast corners about how boring the storm was.
Why is that?
My theory is that people are hungry for adventure and many don’t know how to seek it themselves for risk of losing physical comfort, and thus, they find themselves surprised and pleased by the adrenaline rush of an approaching storm.
Most people would never confess that they find storms exciting. It’s not a politically correct thing to say, especially when death and damage are involved. But, on some level, an approaching hurricane is as exciting as it is dreadful.
Because as much as we seek comfort, we also find it boring.
Comfort is a noose. Once we have it, we become too content, we fight too hard to keep it and not hard enough for the things that give life meaning. A hurricane is a reminder of what’s important — relationships, life, little pleasures, love, truth.
A life lived to preserve physical comfort isn’t really all that fulfilling. It is fulfilling to seek it, but once you’re there, then what?
The happiest people are not those who are the most comfortable. The happiest seem to be those who are in a zone. Those with a mission and a goal, those who are seeking to better themselves or some societal element over which they have control, those who have risked physical comfort for some greater purpose.
Religious missionaries and business entrepreneurs and loving parents share this in common.
Happiness lives outside of our comfort zone.
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Update on the hurricane: It is proving to be a slow – rather than fast – destroyer, as flood waters rise, especially in Vermont. Story.
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Don’t be paralyzed by imperfection
Finding “meaning” in the for-profit realm
Maximize the moment. And jump.
Applying Wall Street logic to your life
Stop feeling so guilty
There’s no such thing as paradise on Earth
When the world underestimates you, keep showing up
Oh, the humanity! (Commentary on Chilean miners)
Pop the cork, spritz the pricey perfume, today is special
A layman’s poem with a simple message
Catastrophe (Hurricane Katrina)
Yes! Love this! SO true, and you verbalized it in a way I hadn’t thought of before.
Its true, and you’ve written it very well.. Thanks for sharing..
I could not possibly love this post more! It took me awhile to realize this in my own life–how my attachment to comfort was actually harming me (hello, couch potato!). Stretching beyond my comfort zones has been so rewarding. Oh, how I wish we would move beyond our comfort zones on a collective level–in how we spend our time, our money, etc.
@Alexis: Thank you! And thanks for linking back!
@Hanna: Thank you!
@CF: Go you! I think your giving up of your car is really putting this into practice.
Two things immediately came to mind after reading this post.
1) The final scene in George Bernard Shaw’s “Heartbreak House” – when the cast, seemingly reconciled to an idle, increasingly uncertain existence, revolving around an English manor, suddenly come to life & delight as warplanes bomb the surrounding area & come ever closer.
It’s meaning, I think, is exactly what you describe: “people are hungry for adventure..and thus, they find themselves surprised and pleased by the adrenaline rush of an approaching storm.”
2)Paul Farmer, co-founder of Partners in Health, & one of the people I most admire. When you write “the happiest people are not those who are the most comfortable..” – that’s him! Eg, Tracy Kidder, in “Mountains Beyond Mountains” http://goo.gl/85xuL.
@HMF: I love your references. I haven’t read nor seen, “Heartbreak House” and now I want to!
And way to link to a Google book rather than the link to buy the book — the excerpt got me hooked…that’s got to be a way to sell books.