Mental Discomfort

When we think of discomfort, or being uncomfortable, we often straight away think about the physical side to the definition. Perhaps we relate to the feeling of being cramped in an aeroplane, or being squashed up with other people in a small car, or not feeling relaxed in bed when trying to go to sleep, or having a headache, or having sore muscles, or feeling the affects from an injury. All these are different examples of physical discomfort, be it pain, soreness, aches, tension, cramps, stiffness, and the like. In summary, when we think of discomfort, we immediately think of pain. With the physical side of discomfort, we can actually feel the pain in our body, therefore we have an awareness of it, and naturally, we go about relieving ourselves of that pain. Whether we take pain relief medication, or we speak to a medical practitioner, or we admit ourselves into hospital, or whether we just rest the area of pain, we are at least proactive in doing something to relieve the pain. Why? Because it's uncomfortable and it hurts, naturally. What about when it comes to the mental side to discomfort though? It's funny how, for so long, that humankind has only really focused on the physical side of things, rather than both the physical and mental. Health springs to mind with this sort of thing, and how so many people still refuse to believe that mental illness is actually a legitimate form of health issue. Because these such people haven't experienced a mental illness for themselves, many tend to believe that mental illnesses, such as depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, autism, bipolar, and dementia, are all just contrived, and perhaps used a perfect reason for people to attract attention to themselves, to be lazy, or to use as a convenient excuse. Finally, we are starting to see an increase in awareness around mental health, although it doesn't tend to change the above beliefs of those who haven't experienced a mental health issue, as I mentioned about above. When it comes to discomfort, we tend to think in the same manner., we think physical pain, not mental. Like mental illness is to health, mental discomfort is also real, but we fail to acknowledge it and we fail to have an awareness of it, which means we fail to address it, and therefore, we fail to overcome it.

Mental discomfort isn't directly a health issue as such, although it does have ramifications when it comes to our happiness and wellbeing in life, which can potentially impact on our mental health in a way. Firstly though, let's get a better gauge on exactly what mental discomfort even is. If we have a look at the definition of discomfort, not only does it state that it is "something that makes a person feel physically uncomfortable, or causes slight pain", but it also states that it is "a state of unease, worry, or embarrassment". It's that second part to the definition that is the mental side of discomfort. There's no pain, cramps, aching, soreness, or stiffness, not in the physical sense anyway. It's a discomfort that's all in the mind, fueled by anguish, stress, concern, worry, fear, and doubt. In all honesty, it's a discomfort that we cause ourselves. With physical discomfort, in no way do we want to allow or welcome our body to feel pain. We may workout and push our body to the limit, in order to strengthen and condition ourselves, but we certainly don't invite pain. Why would we, it hurts, after all? With mental discomfort though, we don't seem to care, evident by our actions. It's like we sit back and just keep taking the punches. We continually allow the stress, concerns, worries, problems, and issues, to build up within us, without any drive or intention to resolve them. Instead, all we do is whinge and complain about them, hoping that our circumstances and situations will just magically sort themselves out, and that mental discomfort will ease. Without action on our behalf though, very rarely it ever does. In fact, that mental discomfort tends to worsen instead.

Okay, so let's get the bad news out there, because it's important that we acknowledge the reality of it, which then is going to leave us with a choice to make. We cannot avoid mental discomfort! Such is life, that we are constantly bombarded with various forms of adversity. Even when things are going along beautifully, guaranteed, life is about to test us again, and throw us a new challenge to overcome. It's life's way of pushing us to continue to grow and develop, because as humans, we tend to seek out comfort, and then we begin to settle. It's when we settle and become comfortable, we in fact pause our growth and development, and life doesn't like that. Life wants to ensure we continually push ourselves and challenge ourselves, so we can reveal our true potential and talent. In the knowledge that we can't avoid this mental discomfort, what does this mean for our life and future? Are we destined to forever be stressed, unhappy, anxious, depressed, and unsatisfied? Well, there is good news too. Life actually gives us a choice of which discomfort we would prefer. It sounds ridiculous that it's good news we get to choose our preferred mental pain, but indeed it is a choice we need to make in life. There are two types of mental discomfort that we get to choose from. The first one I would refer to as like "playing along", or even "involuntary discomfort", and it's the choice that the majority of people make worldwide, but that's not a good thing. So what's this playing along business about? To summarize it, it's pretty much just letting life take its course, without making changes, taking risks, trialing different things, or taking any action. It's a case of accepting whatever life throws at us, and just following the crowd basically.

So how does playing along have anything to with mental discomfort? Well, from a young age, we are basically educated in how we should live our life, with that education starting from our parents, to our teachers, then to our friends, and then to society. It's like our life has already been mapped out for us. School, university, corporate job, marriage, buy house, get into debt, have kids, work all our life, get out of debt, retire, and then pass away. That's normality to society. Anything outside of that plan is generally frowned upon. Because we are educated and influenced to believe that is how life should be, by most people around us, we naturally follow it. What we discover is there's no happiness to this plan given to us, no enjoyment, no satisfaction, and no fulfillment. We are forced into finding a corporate job, just to even financially get by and survive, but for 90% of us, we don't even like the work we do. What's worse is we are stuck doing this for two thirds of our life. We perhaps feel pressured into finding our life partner as soon as possible, so we can settle down, buy that house, and have kids, whilst we are still young, and in doing so, we often end up choosing the wrong partner. Because our corporate job doesn't pay us a sufficient wage, we find ourselves constantly battling financially, and stressing over money. We find ourselves overweight and/or unfit, because we don't have the time to exercise, and we rely on those quick fast food meals just so we can eat. We don't have the lifestyle we desire because our job dominates our time, but we can't do anything about it because we need the income. Worst of all, we are constantly unhappy because we never get the chance to pursue our goals, be it due to a lack of time, money, or both.

With all of these type issues in our life, it's no wonder we have that constant mental discomfort of worry, stress, anxiety, and concern, which result in unhappiness, dissatisfaction, and even depression. We live in hope that something will give eventually, and that positive change will sweep over us. We maintain the faith that things will get better, so what do we do? We just play along. We don't do anything different, and that is the first choice. As each day passes, that discomfort intensifies. We become more stressed, more unhappy, more anxious, more concerned, and more depressed, and as a result of this mental discomfort, it starts to impact on our behavior. We start becoming more angry, more frustrated, and more agitated, often taking these emotions out on others. Still, we maintain that hope, that one day things will get better. No, it doesn't! Nothing changes unless we make the change. What we desire can't come to fruition unless we take action. Before we know it, life passes us by and we've lived it in complete unhappiness and misery. This is not the life we desire, nor is it one by our design. That leads us to choice number two, and I refer this one as being "voluntary discomfort". Yep, that's right, we are actually choosing to be mentally uncomfortable. Why would we choose to be uncomfortable for? Well, you've probably heard it many a time before, but success comes to those who are continually prepared to step out of their comfort zone. It's making a choice of creating the life of our own design, and working towards our goals, even if that means overcoming our fear of failure, financial loss, potential embarrassment, judgement of others, fear of ineptitude, and fear of change. It's making the choice that we will have the resilience to overcome all failures, challenges, rejections, and adversities, along that journey to our goals and the future we desire. It's making the choice to be courageous and take risks. It's making the choice to continually persevere towards achieving our goals, and remaining patient in the process, no matter how long it takes. It's about facing up, and standing firm, to the criticism and opposition we will get from others, around our decisions and actions. It's about sacrificing assets, luxuries, leisurely activities, funds, and time, all because we value the reward and importance of our goals more. It's about being prepared to be dragged down to the greatest of depths in life, but yet still maintain the determination to succeed in our journey. It's about adaptability, having the understanding of the need for constant change. It's about setting actions on our action plan that will actually challenge us, and draw ourselves out of our comfort zone. It's about choosing to be uncomfortable, so we can learn, we can grow, we can develop, and ultimately, we can then succeed.

I'll say it again, no matter if we try and run and hide from it, we cannot avoid mental discomfort, so we therefore need to make a choice. Are we prepared to choose that involuntary discomfort, in which we simply plod along in life, feeling unhappy, dissatisfied, miserable, depressed, stressed, and unfulfilled, by following how people say we should live our life, and not taking risks, taking action, or making changes, or are we going to choose voluntary discomfort, whereby we experience failure, rejection, setbacks, challenges, and adversity, yet we are at least progressing to achieve the life we desire, and our goals? It's a no brainer that voluntary discomfort is the way to go. We are going to experience discomfort on either path we choose in life, so why not at least embrace the discomfort on the path in which we can achieve our goals on? Take some risks, be bold, be courageous, be daring, make some changes, try something different, whatever you need to do to unhook you from this life that is offering you no happiness, satisfaction, success, and fulfillment. Don't be afraid to fail, or to face up to some great adversities and hardships, because you will find that the talent and potential within you will come to the fore. As long as you don't succumb to failure, then you can only succeed. Make the choice today, and throw yourself into the deep end of discomfort. It's choosing that voluntary discomfort that will make all the mental pain and suffering all worth it in the end!

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