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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