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Enjoyable vs. Comfortable

Last Monday, I got gum grafts.

My periodontist—a doctor specializing in gums, not periods—informed me of my post-op care:

1. To avoid hard foods scratching the surgical area and to support healing with cold temperatures, eat a lot of ice cream.

Fair enough.

2. To prevent bleeding from an elevated heart rate and blood pressure, sit on the couch all day.

Makes sense, too.

Should I get surgery every week?

Unsurprisingly, this time was enjoyable. I had the most legitimate excuse in the universe to do the thing I’d rather be doing 99% of the time.

But…it wasn’t comfortable.

We often mesh the two feelings—enjoyable and comfortable—but they’re not the same.

Enjoyment comes from pleasure. Comfort comes from alignment.

It’s easy to enjoy ice cream and sitting around all day (pleasurable), but it doesn’t feel like what my body and soul want to do (alignment).

For much of the enjoyable time on the couch, I was uncomfortable. My body wanted movement. My heart wanted a workout. My intestines wanted me to stop eating so much ice cream.

Similarly, some of the time I spend making my life comfortable isn’t enjoyable. Exercising, vacuuming, folding laundry… usually not enjoyable.

Take a look at billionaires. Most of them enjoy their lives, but you’ll often hear about how many of them fantasize about being monks. You know what you won’t hear? Monks dreaming of becoming billionaires. Monks are comfortable.

So… what the fuck should you do? Become a monk?

How to make comfortable activities enjoyable

If you do become a monk, let me know. That’s cool.

My solicited advice is to find ways to make your comfort-providing activities more enjoyable. Here are a few ways how:

1. Play with a mix of routine and variety.  I go to the gym on Monday and Friday, bike on Wednesday, and have no idea what I’ll do on Tuesday and Thursday. The routine of my gym and bike sessions, with the workouts pre-selected, lets me go a bit on autopilot while I listen to enjoyable podcasts.

   The freedom of Tuesday and Thursday lets me experiment with new forms of movement (e.g., new HIIT workouts or yoga classes on YouTube) that keep me guessing long enough to pass the time with an enjoyable curiosity about what’s coming next.

2. Make a game out of it. When my fiancée, Morgan, and I go for a walk, we both guess how many dogs we’ll pass before we start. This adds a fun component to the exercise. Our highest score so far is 37 dogs! Can you beat us? Doubt it, nerds.

3. Join the unicorn turtle activity that is intrinsically comfortable and enjoyable. Breathwork is an activity that every. single. time I do it, I both enjoy it AND feel more comfortable from it. It’s why people say things after Slow The Fuck Down events like:

   “My brain was going a million mph, now I feel reset to my base level.”

   “I was able to get out of my head but like deep in my head at the same time. It was the most peaceful I’ve felt in a long time.”

😄 Funny Business

📊 Community Poll

Results for last week’s question: The aliens from earlier are so grateful your timeline invented 7-Eleven Slurpees, they allow you to feel one satisfying situation. Which option do you choose?

All of these are correct IMO. I went with the noodles, because food.

On to this week’s question…

Answers will be shared two Thursdays from now — next Thursday is a premium subscriber-only edition.

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It is better to die of hunger having lived without grief and fear, than to live with a troubled spirit, amid abundance. — Epictetus