During my entire life, the seductive voice of comfort has always whispered in my ear. For the most part, I have been too busy or perhaps too distracted to challenge its commands. At worst, I was entirely complicit to it, because fighting it is a tiresome and a losing proposition.
Recently however, as I eliminated many distractions in my life, I have become more self-observant and a lot more self-aware, to the point that I can now hear that voice call to me throughout the day. It calls frequently and with pleasing seduction.
Comfort is a lie and a trap.
It is a spiritual abyss that leads us to become blindly destitute.
Our world and our very lives were designed to move in perpetual forward motion. Yet, we resist all change and forsake our lives for a few fleeting moments of comfort.
Here in Canada, a small, multi-billion-dollar giant, that peddles coffee by the barrel full, and keeps its patrons circling around the doors of their establishment like vultures, knows the value and profitability of comfort.
Just listen to people talk sometime. They are always headed to ‘Timmies’. I guess our Southern neighbours have to make their way to ‘Mickey D’s’.
You know Timmy, don’t you? Surely, you know Mickey?
Uncle Chucks’ older brother? Mary’s second cousin, from your mother’s side of the family? That Timmy. That Mickey.
We seek comfort in many things, including corporate giants, yet we get so restless loving and living with our own families.
Albert Einstein was a genius, but I believe his greatest insights are regarding the perils of our human family, and not concerning the origins and foundation of our universe.
The definition of insanity, as it goes, is doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting different results.
I have stopped listening to the voice of comfort. Well, not entirely.
It still beckons me like a hungry and beaten junk yard dog, and I admit, I often feel grateful to its whispers, when it tosses out a few discarded scarps of food from its dinner table.
Recently though, I have summoned the courage to tell it to Fuck Off, while running in the opposite direction. I walk the other way. I resist. I resist, because I have learned that the voice of comfort is a coward and never runs back after me. It just waits for the next opportunity to impart its foolishness. It knows that it has worn me down before. It is confident that it can run me down again.
I understand now what Muhammad Ali meant when he said that he doesn’t start counting the push-ups or sit-ups, until they start to hurt. Let it hurt.
I embrace all tiredness, pain, and uncertainty. I face my fears and anxiety; everything that lays hidden in that diseased little whispering voice of seductive comfort.
It tells me to take it easy, so I get up and crawl. It tells me that I can do it tomorrow, so I stop what I’m doing, and get at it today. It beckons me to dream new dreams and stop foolish enterprises, so I finish writing this very blog entry for today, knowing that most people will never hear of it, will ignore, and never read it.
The voice of comfort is an insidious little bastard. I spit in its eye and continue digging my ditches.
Listen for it. Listen, but remember that you cannot stop it or silence it.
You can only use it like the Magi did years ago.
Do the opposite of what feels comfortable and see for yourself if doesn’t make a real difference in your life.
(I’m being told to edit again, so I better keep the mistake and ship immediately).
