We’re supposed to be comfortable all the time now. Even the slightest bit of discomfort means it’s time to hit eject. But that can be needlessly reductive. Too often, we inflate a challenging-but-worth-it-simmer into a make-it-stop-5-alarm-fire.

When I look back at my own life, many of the greatest experiences I’ve had initially involved discomfort. And that’s made me realize how frequently transcendence is preceded by suffering. In hindsight, those obstacles often wind up feeling like an integral part of the journey.

As a result, I try to recognize and reframe feelings of discomfort when they arise. Sure, touching a hot pan is something to avoid. (Duh.) But if it’s more of an iffy, “this kinda hurts,” emotional feeling, I try not to lunge at it; Instead, I aim to gauge if something productive might be happening. What’s on the other side of this?

Part of this approach is recognizing internal red flags that served as valuable warning signs to our ancestors (after all, cavemen were right to be wary of threats) may now just be our minds seeking something to fear. These days, we typically live in sanitized safety bubbles that leave our fear tank on E. That leads us to elevate mundane irritations into this-may-be-trauma. Inflation isn’t only economic, it can be psychological too.

Again, I’m not talking about legit, severely wounding pain. I’m talking about the uncomfortable yet productive kind of suffering. Some examples I’ve experienced:

• Working out creates soreness, but keep going and you get muscle growth. On the other side: health.

• Learning guitar hurts your fingers initially, but keep going and you develop calluses. On the other side: creating music.

• Traveling to a foreign land where you don’t speak the language is frightening, but keep going and you start to learn some lingo and how the place works. On the other side: worldliness.

• Being vulnerable in your art feels terrifying, but keep going and you find it’s the thing audiences want most from you. On the other side: your (maybe) masterpiece.

• Taking shrooms makes you feel sick at first, but keep going and you wind up feeling ego loss. On the other side: discovering the interconnectedness of the universe.

• Drinking ayahuasca makes you vomit, but keep going and you can connect to the deeper parts of your self. On the other side: the most spiritually significant experience of your life.

• Talking to a stranger incites fight-or-flight feelings, but keep going and you find people frequently crave being approached like that. On the other side: an interesting interaction and (potentially) a lover or friend.

• Initiating difficult conversations can feel challenging (and even cruel sometimes), but keep going and you can get to the real stuff in a relationship. On the other side: a deeper love.

• Giving birth is excruciating, but keep going and, well, ya got a baby. On the other side: life.

OK, I haven’t actually experienced that last one. But since parents won’t shut up about it, I’ll go along.

Besides the obvious reasons, why do we avoid suffering? Because pain can be humbling. It can force you to reexamine everything you think you know. So it’s no wonder your ego wields it mercilessly. It’s the best way to keep you in your comfort zone – and your monkey mind loves that. It’ll aim to keep you safe, even if that stunts your growth as a person.

Next time you encounter discomfort, the question to ask: Is this a growing pain or a shrinking pain?

Consider the impact when all is said and done. That hard thing you’re going through, will it feel truly traumatic when it’s in the rearview mirror? Or will it be something you’re glad you endured? Also, what’s the worst case scenario if you decide to soldier on and go through it?

As we sail through life, various forms of suffering will shine upon us. The challenge is to suss out which type we’re encountering. That distant light might be a lighthouse warning us away from a rocky shore. But it might also be the bright star that points us in the right direction.

Fuel ⛽️

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Quickies

🎯 Boomer - anyone who disagrees with a 23 year old

🎯 In defense of psychedelics, it's worth noting sobriety comes with plenty of bad trips too.

🎯 "What you're doing may not translate to 2024" (👇) is pretty rich coming from Rolling f–ing Stone. 😂

🎯 “This is no time to argue both sides have problems.”
-People in a self-congratulatory echo chamber who never reach anyone that might disagree with them

🎯 Normalize thinking an Irish exit is actually super polite.

🎯 It’s cute how the gym still plays music like not everyone there is listening to headphones.

🎯 Lana Del Rey was in Taylor's Super Bowl box!? OK, screw this Travis/Taylor nonsense. Gimme everything LANA DEL REY MEETS JASON KELCE, pleeeeeease.

🎯 The three attachment styles: 1) You like them more than they like you 2) They like you more than you like them 3) Whatever, it's all good.

🎯 Tina Fey wisdom:

🎯 Dear "I don't need a therapist, I have friends" people: You're a bad friend.

🎯 Therapists are like emotional prostitutes. You go to a tiny room, lie down, open up about your weird desires, and they go along with it until your time’s up. Then, you pay them since no one else will let you do all that. And, in the end, it’s usually all about your mom in some weird way.

🎯 This prosecutor affair thing is the most Atlanta thing ever. Even the D.A.’s office there seems like it was directed by Tyler Perry.

🎯 “I need a Sabbath from my Sabbath” is the Jewish “I need a vacation from my vacation.”

🎯 Imagine how people with chronic illnesses feel when they hear the phrase "at least you have your health." So cruel! "At least you ha– Oh, really? Damn. Well, you sure are screwed."

🎯 The thing they don't tell you about good looking shaved head guys is they were also good looking before they shaved their heads.

🎯 Kanye after saying all that anti-semitic stuff in 2022...

Comedy

🃏 I post clips of my standup (and more) at Instagram, TikTok, Threads, and YouTube.

mattrubycomedy

A post shared by @mattrubycomedy

🃏 On the road:

• 2/23-25 Steamboat Springs, CO | Steamboat Comedy | (tickets)

• 3/2 Colchester, CT | Priam Vineyard | (tickets)

• More…

5-spotted

🗯️ The disease of our times, according to Steven Pressfield in Tribe of Mentors.

The disease of our times is that we live on the surface. We’re like the Platte River, a mile wide and an inch deep. I always say, 'If you want to become a billionaire, invent something that will allow people to indulge their own Resistance.' Somebody did invent it. It’s called the Internet. Social media. That wonderland where we can flit from one superficial, jerkoff distraction to another, always remaining on the surface, never going deeper than an inch. Real work and real satisfaction come from the opposite of what the web provides. They come from going deep into something—the book you’re writing, the album, the movie—and staying there for a long, long time.

🗯️ “Wherever you find podcasts” as radical statement.

But what we can take away from hearing "wherever you find podcasts" at the end of every episode we listen to is that, sometimes without us knowing, radical systems can survive and even thrive in the modern world of tech and media. They can inspire new creators to make similar systems that are unowned, uncentralized, and a little bit uncontrollable. And in this era where we're seeing the renaissance of the open web, they point the way toward a future where we can use the same tone to say "wherever you find news" or "wherever you find your friends online", and know that it means that there's a way that our lives online could be fully in our own control.

🗯️ The Most Overrated Things in Personal Finance. What’s underrated? Knowing history.

Of all things I’ve done as an investor, having some idea of history, and, in particular, market history has made a huge difference in how I behave financially. Once you realize that “history doesn’t repeat, but it rhymes” then it becomes much easier to stay calm when the going gets tough. I’ve had to rely on this many times before when the world felt like it was going to end. The more you know, the better equipped you will be to deal with whatever the world throws at you. Of course, I’m a financial blogger who believes in the power of financial education, so I may be a bit biased.

🗯️ Gurwinder on junk info and "intellectual obesity."

Eventually, the addiction to useless info leads to what I call "intellectual obesity." Just as gorging on junk food bloats your body, so gorging on junk info bloats your mind, filling it with a cacophony of half-remembered gibberish that sidetracks your attention and confuses your senses. Unable to distinguish between relevant and irrelevant, you become concerned by trivialities and outraged by fiction. These concerns and outrages push you to consume even more, and all the time that you're consuming, you're prevented from doing anything else: learning, focusing, even thinking. The result is that your stream of consciousness becomes clogged and constipated; you develop atherosclerosis of the mind.

🗯️ Kurt Vonnegut in a PBS interview from 2005:

Kurt Vonnegut tells his wife he’s going out to buy an envelope:

“Oh, she says, well, you’re not a poor man. You know, why don’t you go online and buy a hundred envelopes and put them in the closet?

And so I pretend not to hear her. And go out to get an envelope because I’m going to have a hell of a good time in the process of buying one envelope.

I meet a lot of people. And see some great looking babies. And a fire engine goes by. And I give them the thumbs up. And I’ll ask a woman what kind of dog that is. And, and I don’t know. The moral of the story is — we’re here on Earth to fart around.

And, of course, the computers will do us out of that. And what the computer people don’t realize, or they don’t care, is we’re dancing animals. You know, we love to move around. And it’s like we’re not supposed to dance at all anymore.”

Let’s all get up and move around a bit right now… or at least dance.

That’s it. Thanks for being part of it.

-Matt