How to Overcome Your Comfort Addiction

When Enough is Enough



Despite my pseudo-tough exterior, I’m normally pretty patient and tolerant when it comes to listening to people’s stuff. At times, I’m even kind, sympathetic and generous. Surprising, I know.



Who knew?



However, in recent times, I’ve had my limits tested. Maybe I’ve reached my pointless-conversation threshold? Or, perhaps I’m done with people complicating the simple, wanting sympathy not solutions and making easy, hard? It’s fair to say that I like working with people who are serious about changing their lives and their situations. And I’m not talking about people who sound serious, seem serious or look serious. No, I mean people who are serious.



And, yes, there’s often a big difference.



What Success Demands



These days, I’m only interested in helping those who are genuinely committed to exploring their potential and doing what success demands – whatever success means for them personally. That is, people who are committed to being accountable and taking responsibility for their current reality. People who are committed to doing the work. And people who are totally committed to the messy-uncomfortable-inconvenient process of change. Not the fluffy, comfortable, no-effort-required theory of it.



Theory ain’t reality.



I’m of the not-very-popular opinion that many of us living in first-world countries have become fat, precious and lazy. Physically, mentally and emotionally. Literally and metaphorically. Enamored with the idea of personal transformation but terrified by the practical reality of it. In some ways, we’ve become victims of our own intolerance for anything uncomfortable. We’ve become whiners, sooks and princesses.



Addicted to Easy



And while the majority of the world lives in poverty, we find new and exciting ways to make life hard for ourselves. We create problems because, on some level, we like the drama, attention and pity. We bitch about trivial crap while starving kids sleep in dirt. We ignore the ninety-nine positives (in our life) and focus on the one negative. We’ve become addicted to all things comfortable, easy and painless and in the process we’ve become weak, vulnerable and spoilt.



We have talent, we waste it.

We have awesome bodies, we destroy them.

We have minor challenges, we call them major catastrophes.

We have blessings, we only see problems.

We have much to celebrate, we complain anyway.

We have countless opportunities, we allow fear to get in our way.



What Life Isn’t



For some of us, it’s time to realise that life is not a self-help workshop, CD or book. Life is not a hug, a slap on the back, a high-five or a smiley face. Neither is it a quirky, feel-good quote from some guru. Or a poster of a sunset or a puppy. Sometimes, life is amazing. Sometimes, it’s a total bitch. Sometimes, life is a series of shitty events. For a while at least.



Just ask the people of Queensland, Australia.



"Sometimes life is a fluffy puppy. Sometimes, it’s a puppy turd."



And right there – in the middle of all that occasional shitty-ness – you and I get to decide whether our challenges will affect us for a while or define us forever. We get to give the events of our life meaning. To create our own reality. Our destiny. To sink or swim. To overcome or be overcome. We get the chance to become more powerful or to give away our power to situations, circumstances, events and other people. It’s a choice. It’s all a choice. We get to decide what’s important to us. And how we will react. How we will cope. What decisions we will make. What kind of results we will create.



And, most importantly, we get to decide who we will become.



Choose carefully, consciously and courageously.







Craig Harper is one of Australia's leading self help authors.

Self Help Books - Craig Harper