Voluntary discomfort

One of the most impactful Katrina Ubell podcast episodes I have listened to is the one on voluntary discomfort vs. mandatory suffering.  If you haven’t already, go listen to it.  And maybe one more time.  Being able to tolerate discomfort and even embrace it in the service of a higher goal is absolutely a good skill to have.  And we all know that the ability to delay gratification is a skill which allows people to build wealth and success in life.  True, in the case of the famous “marshmallow experiment” I just linked, there are major socioeconomic factors at play in terms of the trust of the child in the examiner and the relative risk/benefit of delaying gratification when a person’s life is insecure.

Assume for the moment that you are in a situation where you are living in relatively safe, economically stable circumstances and you would like to retrain for a new career.  In order to do so, you will have to borrow some money, reduce your expenditures, put in long hours studying and learning and in the end, you will have the shiny new career which, hopefully, will not only be more fulfilling for you but also perhaps allow you to pay off your debt and enjoy and even more pleasant lifestyle than you had previously.

If you want to be stronger, you could take up weightlifting.  It is harder to lift weights for 30 minutes daily than to watch a show.  It is physically tiring and somewhat uncomfortable to stress muscles so they are inspired to grow stronger.  At every turn, it will be more pleasant and comfortable to skip the workout.  However, we have an instinctive sense that tolerating the discomfort in the service of the greater desire (being stronger) is worth it.

Katrina Ubell points out that voluntary discomfort is often necessary to avoid mandatory suffering down the road.  If you are in a career which is not fulfilling, retraining for a new one will potentially free you from a lifetime of dissatisfaction in your work life.  If you suffer from chronic back pain, embarking on a core strengthening program will hopefully improve this situation so you are more free from pain and also able to do more things.

Cross Talk

Indeed, some of us get so good at enduring voluntary discomfort in certain arenas that we actually forget that the point of the voluntary discomfort is to avoid mandatory suffering later.  If there is no mandatory suffering at the end, then the voluntary discomfort might be totally optional.

I think one of the most interesting places to see this is in the realm of money.  This is an area where a certain amount of voluntary discomfort does indeed ease or prevent mandatory suffering later in life.  Contributing diligently to retirement savings plans, for example, early in your career when the pinch is felt the worst, allows you to take advantage of compound interest and time in the market to grow your retirement nest egg so that you do not spend your retirement living in a studio apartment eating cat food at the end of each month.  This avoidance of mandatory suffering in your golden years is probably worth a certain amount of voluntary deprivation/discomfort.

Because certain kinds of voluntary discomfort lead to avoidance of suffering later, our brains can make the intellectual shortcut that all discomfort is good.  This is similar to the way our brains can suggest that food will fix all discomfort.  Add these together and you can see how these two kinds of cross-talk work together to increase the proportion of overweight and obese people.  We are choosing to be uncomfortable in the service of avoidance of suffering; we don’t know how to process the emotion of discomfort and so we eat to soothe those feelings.

Happiness Plateau

Research suggests that more money stops making us happier after a certain point.  There is a lot of air time given to where that certain point is but the bottom line is that once your basic needs are met, there is a limit to how much happiness money can buy.  So if you continue to engage in the voluntary discomfort of spending below your means after this optimal point is reached (for the future), then you are being uncomfortable for no good reason.  This is illustrated with the difficulty many retirees have in spending their retirement nest egg as illustrated in this interesting paper – The Decumulation Paradox.

Ignoring Integrity

What is the difference between voluntary discomfort to achieve a greater goal (avoid suffering later) and discomfort in general?  The simple, although not easy, answer is that it depends on whether the goal you are trying to achieve is consonant with your true self, your true goals, your own internal values.  The reason I mentioned money and the happiness plateau is that it seems clear that for most people, there is an income level above which happiness does not continue to increase.  Therefore, tolerating more discomfort to get more money is likely to be futile for most people.  Now there are people who’s true, deep, internal goal is to earn enough money to do something – establish a charity, political action committee etc. whose goals are very consonant with their own internal motivation.  In this case, continuing to tolerate discomfort in order to accumulate more money is probably something they should consider.

But if your internal goals are more of the – spend time with friends, go hiking, collect rocks, have meaningful conversations with troubled youth – variety, then more money will not necessarily help you along the way.  You have to connect with your internal self and learn to pay attention to your quiet internal emotions in order to know if the discomfort you are contemplating is truly in service of your own internal goals.  Ignoring integrity creates discomfort but it is never the kind which leads to avoidance of mandatory suffering later.

TL;DR

Discomfort is necessary for growth but all growth is not in service of your own integrity.  You need to tune in to your values and intentionally choose growth which serves you.