Working Through Discomfort

The story:
My friend was very upset with what I wrote. They let me know in no uncertain terms how hurt they felt and how personally offensive my words were. I felt terrible and foolish. I wrote back acknowledging the truth of some of what they said and apologizing for the hurt my words had caused. They wrote back and said how much my response meant to them. I was surprised and incredibly touched.

My response to the response to the response:
We’re always playing long game in relationships. Relationships unfold over time through multiple actions and reactions. Relationships are an ongoing creation of interweaving responsiveness. And reactivity is just a kind of vivid responsiveness. While many kinds of reactivity feel unpleasant (anger, shame, fear, confusion), reactivity is itself a manifestation of connection. And I’m now wondering if the deep and subtle joy that arose in me in response to my friend’s last communication might also be called a kind of reactivity

Though this interaction over the past couple of days, I’m beginning to see more clearly how my desire not to upset other people is a barrier to my connecting to those same people—especially to the people I perceive as ‘not like me’. This category of ‘not like me’ is utterly elastic and can range from a small subset of ‘those people’ who hold different political beliefs or see the world in a particular way or worship a different God—to everyone who is not me. Some days, even the people who are closest to me feel like strangers and I imagine I live in a world of utter aloneness—trapped in with my own terminal uniqueness.

Though it is may be admirable to care about how other people feel and how our actions impact them, I’m rediscovering that this is not a reliable or effective guide for human interaction. Partly because my intention to not hurt other people is often a cover for my desire not to feel uncomfortable and partly because there is something more important than avoiding conflict. There are things worth feeling uncomfortable for.

A young friend of mine used to play a computer game called Sim-City. The point was to use the resources you had to create thriving interactive cities. The success of your cities could be measured on different scales: population, economic activity, diversity, etc. One measure of success was to have the city with the lowest crime rate. My friend discovered (and this may have been a bug that was repaired in later editions of the game) that you could get your crime rate to zero if you bulldozed the whole city. And effective but self-defeating strategy.

So too, I might imagine that I could realize my dream of not hurting the people around me if I withdraw. There are, of course, many ways to withdraw. We can become hermits and not call or write or see anyone. But we can also withdraw in place by smiling and nodding—pretending that we are agreeable to everything when in fact we are simply refusing to participate fully. We can withdraw into stony silence and respond to inquiries about our internal state by announcing that we are ‘fine.’ We can cultivate an empty neutrality and just not come forward with anything. And these are just a few of my top avoidance strategies. I’m sure we all have our own favorites and infinite variations—all designed to keep us safe—but all having a huge cost.

All of these strategies have been necessary to our survival and are still necessary to some degree. But if we want to live fully and if we want to give our gifts in service of healing the world, we have to be willing to tolerate a lot of discomfort. A friend recently told me they wanted to live a ‘more courageous’ life. I resonate with their words.

For me, tolerating discomfort only makes sense when I remember and clarify what is more important than feeling comfortable. As I think about my friend from the first story and the deep pleasure of feeling even slightly more connected to them, I think that that connection was and will continue be worth feeling uncomfortable for.

And I think of my dream of a more just and free society, where people feel safe and are given the opportunities to cultivate and give their gifts to each other. Maybe this too is worth making mistakes and feeling uncomfortable for.