For a few months now, I've had these words on my about page:
My goal for this year is to fully embrace discomfort
Today I want to talk about my journey with this.
Uncomfortable Situations
Feeling uneasy or worried tends to be unbearable for me. When I'm there, I usually can't focus on anything else, and I will ruminate endlessly on the situation that's affecting me.
It can be something physical, like being in a plane without leg room and having a claustrophobia flare-up. In that case, there are some things I know work: remove my shoes (sorry, society), take .5mg of Clonazepam (which I'm prescribed), ask the flight attendant for a beer to dumb me down, or all three of them. But there's the rest of the situation itself: being there. That's pretty much inevitable.
It can also be something emotional. A worry about the future. Waiting for potential bad news. An argument with a partner. Emotional discomfort is the worst, and that's what I'm focusing on today.
My first instinct is to attack the situation itself. Trying to force a solution, an agreement, trying to set things to a comfortable baseline that allows me to be at peace. But it rarely works very well. This could mean opting for the worst option possible in a situation just to be done with it. Or going for a quick agreement in an interpersonal situation just to settle things down, which will obviously fire back in the future because it's unsustainable and a quick fix.
When dealing with disagreements or rough personal situations, not giving them time to settle usually makes things worse in the long term, but sometimes also immediately.
My second instinct is to look for quick distractions. YouTube. Scrolling social media. A TV series. Anything that takes my mind off the situation, but it doesn't work.
I used to say that when I'm in a bad mental state I couldn't focus my attention on TV, which is one of the things I enjoy the most in life. But the problem wasn't my attention, the problem was trying to evade an unavoidable situation that affected me profoundly. One where looking away wasn't an option.
Embracing Discomfort
Embracing discomfort has been the thing that really helped me. I've heard of the concept for a while in Stoicism, but it was an episode of Stoic Coffee Break, that made it click for me back in December 2025. I was walking back from the store to my parents’ home, and when I heard the idea, it resonated so much with me that the whole moment got imprinted in my mind.
Of course I should. Of course.
Confront the feelings. Don't look away. Let them surround you. There are usually multiple parts to the situation. Feel every one of them. Be there. Live the moment. Let the panic come in and slowly go away.
Staying present in the feeling slowly takes the irrational fears away from the situation. The panic reaction is strong, but its intensity rarely lasts. After a few hours, you start dissecting the situation into really bad, bad, not-that-bad, and even good things. It becomes real. And the anxiety bomb is disarmed, at least in part.
From there, it's way easier to work your way through, wait or search for a solution, because even if the situation is scary or uncomfortable, it's now real. It's a set of specific problems that you can objectively try to solve, and not an unnamed monster lurking in the darkness behind your back.
The Chemical Burn
This is what the chemical burn scene in Fight Club is about for me. Since I've been thinking of discomfort, it became my favorite scene in the movie.
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