Comfortable Discomfort
Hey, I just got back from 2 hours of tennis and then a mile run/walk, and my entire body is on fire with pain. My tennis elbow is very badly flared up, at one point my hand wasn’t strong enough to keep holding my racket so it fell, so I would take turns playing left-handed when I could. After all that, however, I went out and took turns running until I couldn’t anymore because of pain, then walking until I was ready to run again. It wasn’t too far, but to me, it is a massive distance – given that 6 months ago I couldn’t run more than 15 steps before my leg pain was too much. Oh, and on top of this, I worked out for around an hour and a half earlier in the day and ran 0.55 miles nonstop after the workout.
While running, I was thinking about how I’m grateful for my upbringing being shit in a lot of aspects. Up till this year, I was at the bottom of my peers in strength, endurance, running, etc. I ended up deciding that I was going to change that, I went to physical therapy, started working out, and stayed incredibly strict on myself.
It’s been a bit over 6 months now, and I’ve gotten stretch marks on my body from how I’m gaining muscle too fast for my skin to keep up. I’ve had several people ask me if I’m on steroids, and fairly consistently get recognized as a gym-goer now. My squat/bench/deadlift total 765 lbs, and my goal is to hit 1000 lbs combined before a year.
I think I would be pretty naive to discount my genetics, as they probably are helping me out considerably – given my rate of improvement. But also I’ve been going to the gym 6 days a week, working out for roughly 1.5 hours, with minimal breaks. Then after that I run, stopping at the point of injury. Some days I have to sit down for a bit because my ankles hurt so much. I don’t skip any days, even when I’m violently depressed and barely have the energy to get out of bed. On my rest days (which I have to take), I go on a several-mile walk. I currently also have roughly 8-9 hours of sports (casual albeit) a week. Over the summer I was working at a summer camp, and I was active for 8 hours a day, and right after I would go work out then run. I would burn roughly 4-4.5k calories a day.
My point here is I have worked incredibly hard for the progress I’ve made. I think this work ethic is something I’ve built due to the lack of comfortable discomfort growing up.
Comfortable discomfort is the term I use to describe when something is not where you want it to be, but not bad enough to the point where you would put in the effort to change it. For example, a relationship that is overall fairly good, but has some kinks you don’t like. Or a job that pays well, but is draining. Things like this suck but often don’t suck enough for you to actually change it.
In this sense, I’m somewhat grateful now how many things in my life were bad enough that I wanted to change them. My mental health was horrible, and that pushed me to give therapy my all. My body was weak, and that pushed me to become strong. I was not socialized enough, and that pushed me to take that into my own hands. I was not enough at school, and that pushed me to become incredibly good at it.
I’m glad how many things I’ve built with my own hands. I’ve worked incredibly hard for so many things in my life, and in a sense, I’m thankful for having a shitty childhood. At this point, I feel like fruits have started to grow from the tree I’ve been tending for years now. I’m glad I get to taste it’s juice now.