The American dream was what most of America wanted at one point. The dream to have the white picket fence, the 3 bedroom home with lots of room to spare, the luxury car that had every amenity known to man.
That was the American dream. And it should be considered our enemy.
The American dream became about comfort and living a life that was easy.
That’s not what I want and I hope it’s not what you want. That’s why comfort is the enemy.
Image by Laura Joy Perales
Comfort begins to change us. When we live in comfort, our desires begin to change. We begin to think we have it made and we’re on the road to success.
Not only that, we tend to become lazy. Our guard begins to soften and we fall into bad habits.
Give Up On Comfort
The allure of comfort is there. We like it, if we’re honest with ourselves.
Have you ever found yourself drawn to the comfy couch and all of a sudden you wake up 3 hours later having fallen asleep? That’s what comfort does.
Comfort makes us forget about the struggles. Heck, it takes away the struggle.
Yet the struggles are what makes us. Struggle forms us and we can’t give this up to comfort.
Imagine, for a moment, that you’re a caterpillar emerging from your cocoon.
You push. You pull. You squirm. You struggle.
Through this challenging time, you begin to develop the muscles that strengthen your wings as you exit the cocoon. You now have beautiful wings which will help you take flight.
Now, imagine a different scenario. Imagine you’re still a caterpillar.
You begin your fight to exit the cocoon. Only something is different this time. A young girl finds you struggling and decides to help.
Score! You think, as you’re making your way to freedom much more quickly than you thought.
But you quickly realize something’s wrong as you’re freed from the cocoon. Your wings don’t work right. They don’t even look right. And now you can’t fly
Uh oh!
What happened here?
When the caterpillar gave up on the struggle and gave into the comfort of being freed by someone else, the caterpillar didn’t develop the muscles and didn’t expend the energy needed to properly form.
While we don’t develop literal wings from our struggles, we do develop metaphorical wings.
When we struggle, we have to work out new muscles we’ve never used before. It may ignite a thought that helps you develop the next leadership breakthrough. Your struggle may help you see the world in a different light and you’re able to help the young boy at church who is going through something similar to you when you were a child.
Our struggles are there for a reason. We can’t ignore them and we shouldn’t push away the challenges.
Rather, embrace the struggles. Embrace the challenges. Embrace the hard work.
Question: Have you skipped a struggle to embrace comfort? What was the result? Let’s talk about this in the comment section below.
Please note: I reserve the right to delete comments that are offensive or off-topic.