Resist Comfort and Choose To Struggle

We are Cacti in a Rainforest.

That’s the best description of modern humans I’ve heard. 

I wish I could claim credit for the insight, but it belongs to Dr. Tom Finucane.

Evolutionary programming crucial for our survival has become disastrous in the era of abundance.

We’re wired to stuff ourselves with calories, always seek the path of least resistance, and pursue pleasure whenever it’s available. You and I are here today because our ancestors lived this way. But how’s this programming working out for modern humans?

Our drive to seek pleasure is calibrated to an environment of pleasure scarcity. 

When you combine this drive with an environment where pleasure is available 24/7, you end up with a species that makes itself sick and miserable.

We don’t find purpose, hope, or meaning in doing easy things. For most of history, easy was so unusual that this didn’t pose much of a problem. But easy is the default now.

Modern humans have a route available that we’ve never had before: we have the option to be soft. The fastest way to get there is by pursuing constant pleasure.

We process pain and pleasure in overlapping brain regions — they are two sides of the same coin. This relationship is referred to as “The Pain-Pleasure balance.” In her book “Dopamine Nation,” Anna Lembke describes this balance as a lever.

When we do something pleasurable, our brain releases dopamine and the lever tips to the side of pleasure.

However, the lever wants to remain level; it doesn’t like being tipped to one side or the other. There are powerful evolved biological mechanisms that drive the balance to level again.

Lembke uses the analogy of gremlins hopping on the pain side of the lever to restore balance after the experience of pleasure.

As we continue to pursue activities that tip the lever to the side of pleasure, the positive response from dopamine gets weaker, and the opposite reaction to pain gets more robust. The term for this phenomenon is Opponent Process Theory, and it’s why you’ll feel terrific after taking an ice bath and horrible after scraping the bottom of your pint of Häagen Dazs.

Despite the danger of pleasure, a life without comfort is not the solution.

When you look at humanity across cultures and observe the feasts, celebrations, and rituals, and the fact that every culture with the required resources figured out how to make alcohol — it’s clear that having fun is human nature.

The problem is, with our predisposition toward comfort in our ever-so-comfortable environments, if we don’t actively counter the drive to pursue pleasure we end up fat, sick, anxious, depressed, and without meaning.

We have to actively rebel against the temptation to eat and distract ourselves into a mindless stupor.

We don’t find meaning in having fun all the time. We find meaning in doing hard things: pushing our limits, creating, learning, and growing.

Embrace struggle. 

People find meaning in working at something challenging that’s worth doing. The engagement from doing hard things creates flow states, self-respect, and genuine happiness.

To thrive in this hypercaloric environment with its quick options for cheap dopamine everywhere you look, you need to resist comfort. 

You’re programmed to overeat, pursue pleasure, and conserve your energy. To thrive today, you need to be better than your programming.

Resist comfort and choose to struggle.