"The Limits of Comfort. About the Uncomfort We Can No Longer Bear"

Sometimes the store doesn't have exactly what we want. The app doesn't work. The plane is delayed. We don't have the perfect pillow, our favorite coffee, or a comfortable chair. And that's enough to make us feel... aggrieved.

Our tolerance for discomfort has decreased dramatically.

In a world of immediacy, perfect solutions, filters, and services at the click of a button, we perceive any deviation from the ideal scenario as a disruption to the world's order. As if the normal imperfections of reality were unacceptable. Sometimes I feel like we find it harder to endure the lack of internet access than the lack of access to ourselves.

But there is a paradox in this.

Because on the other hand – we can endure a lot.
We're getting stuck at work.
We're getting better at sports.
We work nights, we run despite injuries, we function in relationships that burn us out.
We have no boundaries – for ourselves.
We abuse ourselves.
We have become accustomed to the idea that fatigue is the norm, that lack of strength is standard, that it is not worth complaining about.

And that's what I find most disturbing: that we can no longer distinguish between healthy comfort and survival. That we've confused "comfortable" with "easy" and "difficult" with "valuable."

The boundaries of comfort have shifted

Not in what is good for us – but in what we endure.

We can live for years in emotional turmoil, under tension, stress, and depletion. Yet we can't go half an hour without a phone call, or dinner that didn't arrive in 30 minutes. The world we see is often retouched—clean, aesthetic, rich. It lacks the sense of fatigue, work, waiting, or frustration. It lacks the sense of real process. And in this world, it's very difficult to learn patience.

Or appreciate the effort.
Or accept discomfort.

I don't want to glorify discomfort. But I believe that if we don't learn to embrace it—even in small doses—every little scratch will shatter us. At the same time, we'll give ourselves permission to overwork and strain—because "that's how life is."

I don't want to live like this.
And I don't want my children to live like that.

I wish we could regain contact with reality—the imperfect, sometimes gray, sometimes difficult, but true reality. And that we could regain our acceptance of simple comfort, which doesn't have to be spectacular, but is real rest.

Instead of living in eternal comfort, I choose to live in harmony.