Fuck Comfort! Learn to Live in the Pocket!

Have you ever flown Southwest? If not let me begin by telling you there is no seating arrangement. Sure, you can spend $15 dollars to be one of the first to step on the plane, but it is still first come first serve. The way you become first is 24 hrs. to the second that your flight is to take off you check in, and depending on when you check in you are filtered into a que by 3 groups of 60. It just so happened last Thursday I was at work when I was supposed to check in and ended up as B36. What that means is no window seat, and maybe no aisle seat except at the very back.

Now I am a man who likes my personal space. I have a bubble I call it. Nobody is allowed within my circle of comfort without my approval, and if you impose yourself upon me you best know you irritate me. And if just so happens you are irritating to begin with, and then you enter my circle, fists may be thrown. Obviously, I hate flying for that reason alone. I always try for a window or aisle seat, that way I can lean away from the stranger and perhaps widen my circle of comfort. On this occasion though I may not get the opportunity unless I went all the way to the back of the plane; and for those of us who have ever been past the middle of the plane, getting off when the plane lands is a bitch.

As I stepped onto the plane and looked down the aisle sure enough there was an aisle seat left at the rear of the plane. As I began grumbling about how long it would take me to get off the plane I noticed a middle seat in the third row open. I realized how much quicker I would get off if I just sat between these two strangers and gave up my quest for my circle of comfort.  I thought “Fuck comfort! I want off this plane as soon as it lands.” And I quickly weaseled myself in between the people on row 3. Having an attitude of not giving a fuck I settled back into my seat, my broad shoulders rubbing against the gentlemen beside me. Because of not caring for comfort as the plane took off these two passengers, in not wanting to have my shoulders rub on them leaned away from me, thus giving me unintentionally my circle of comfort; and a quick exit when we landed.

Much of what we do in life revolves around comfort. We go to the places we eat, more often because we have been there before and are comfortable with it. We listen to the types of music we do because we are familiar with it. The people we call friends are such because we are comfortable with them. We attribute the depth of a skillset with how comfortable we are with it. Mastery is a result of countless hours invested in a subject matter, till we are comfortable with it as we are with ourselves. Comfort drives everything we do, even if we do it subconsciously.

The problem with comfort though is that it limits us. Think of any new subject matter you have attempted. How was it? Most likely the words challenging, different, difficult, taxing could be used to describe this experience. The social world has dubbed these words as negative words. They make taxing an unfavorable thing. Difficult in the class of a cult. Different as an outlandish thing. And above all they make challenging on par with a plague and should be avoided at all costs. But despite what the world will chant regarding these “unsavory” words the truth is without these uncomfortable things we would never grow. New friends are made by putting ourselves in a social circle we know nothing of, and continually putting ourselves out there. Muscles are grown as they are ripped repeatedly, day after day, even when their bearer doesn’t want to. Math is learned when the mind is practiced, by repetition and study, when it would rather rest with leisure. Against popular nomenclature we only grow as a result of diving into these uncomfortable words.

Somewhere along the ease of the modern era and the diffusing of cultures, we lost these ethics of uncomfort and supplanted them in our minds with words we dubbed ease. Words such as instantaneous, and pleasurable now adorn much of what before was thought as discomfort. In short, we are trying to put lipstick of a pig with our thinking today, and the moment the world of today kisses the pig and finds it to be in opposition to what it is and they do not know how to react. Why was it so many people in the last election became flustered, to the point that universities put in coloring book corners, and therapy dog petting clinics to ease their frustration? Because somewhere along the line individual’s abilities to remain under duress was lost, and people now run out of the pocket because we taught them to do that. Let me explain what I mean.

In American Football there is what is known as the pocket. The pocket is the area in which the quarterback has space to throw the football to his open receivers, because his O-line (offensive line) are standing as a barricade against the oncoming D-line (defensive line) who is seeking to tackle the quarterback and stop the play action. The moment the ball is hiked to the quarterback this clash of the O-line and D-line starts, and the pocket that the quarterback is supposed to stay in to make their throw starts to deteriorate as pass rushers baker through the line of scrimmage. At this point the quarterback has two options: 1.) stay in the pocket under duress as the pocket deteriorates completely around them or 2.) make a run for it and get out of the discomfort swirling around them
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Doctor's announced the injury he obtained here was ranoutofthepocketlikeafuckingmoronitis.

Most people would choose the option to flee the pocket while a 320 lbs. man is hurtling at you full speed, but that is the worst decision you could make. Although the quarterback may be avoiding the 320 lbs. brick wall when running out of the pocket, they in turn expose themselves to everyone outside, making it a sack the quarterback palooza. It also in turn causes the quarterback to become more susceptible to injury. Only look at the case of Jimmy Garoppolo this season to see what trying to elongate the play outside of the pocket will do. Finally, the worst part of running outside the pocket is that it breaks down the play action. You sacrifice what it is you are trying to achieve, your best chance at yardage down the field, for yardage you think you can achieve on your own outside the pocket. And why? Because you were discomforted by the lumbering giants trying to pull you down.

This example of quarterbacking is attuned to our personal lives. Often in the pocket of life we encounter a barrage of uncomfortable things. Difficulty in personal relationships. Problems at our place of employment. Inability to grasp certain subjects in school. Natural tendency is to feel discomfort, such as when we burn our hand, our first response is to remove it. On top of that hard things are “not cool” from the “Insta”gram culture of today. We interpret success, items, and relationships through one shot images, and the process of instantaneous feeding of image to our brains, as instantaneous comfort. When we place them against the backdrop of reality, the elongated uncomfortable circumstances of success, we feel we must be doing something wrong. When truth be told what we are experiencing is normal, and a sojourn through discomfort in the only path to comfort. The process of giving birth has not changed because we only see pictures of mothers holding their newborn babe. The experience is anything but uncomfortable, but the yield, a newborn child to love, play with, and raise as your own, far outweighs the investment in discomfort in the end.

Somewhere along the way we lost our understanding on discomfort yields success. Just as a quarterback may elongate their career by avoiding needless tackles by staying in the pocket, we too will expose ourselves to needless hindrance if learn to live in the pocket. Just as with the example of my discomfort with flying, how much more hindered would I have been I went to the back of the plane and had to await the slow deplaning of the other passengers? If you think about it, I am sure you can spot several times of needless hindrance because you were too worried of being uncomfortable. The question is was it worth it? If yes than by all means continue doing you. But if it wasn’t, then fuck comfort! Get the things you want. Put yourself out there. Learn to live in the pocket. But how does one learn to be comfortable being uncomfortable? The answer, you never should.

Being uncomfortable is meant to be just that. You cannot wish away discomfort, it would be asking to change nature. It would be like asking birthing a child to be as pleasant as the process by which the child was made. Or asking the joy you feel as that paycheck hits your bank account to be as rewarding as totaling your car on your way to work. That is not how emotions work, we are not programmed to respond that way; and if someone does, they have a serious dopamine problem and need to get professional help. All these speakers, and self-help gurus that tell you hard work is great, or that you can make every fat as sweet as cherry blossoms are fucking lying. The truth is discomfort is distasteful, ugly and barren of joy, but it yields returns. The secret if any is learned composure. Can you learn to keep yourself within distress? The answer is yes. Look only to a Ram’s or Patriot’s game this week to see two gentlemen who have learned to keep themselves in the discomfort of the pocket, and the success they have. One has an 9-1 record this season, the other 5 Superbowl rings.

In the end what do you want? Do want to get off the plane faster, or stay in you comfort bubble? The choice is yours, and yours alone. For most of my life I wanted the bubble. But you know what I learned inside it? All the things I wanted in life where outside it, and it wasn’t until I started making myself continually go outside my comfort bubble that I began to acquire those things. So, if you find yourself not getting the things you want, by staying within your comfort bubble all I have to ask is why are you fucking yourself? Get out of the fucking bubble and become uncomfortable bitch.