“Western culture has things a little backwards right now. We think that if we had every comfort available to us, we’d be happy. We equate comfort with happiness. And now we’re so comfortable we’re miserable. There’s no struggle in our lives. No sense of adventure. We get in a car, we get in an elevator, it all comes easy. What I’ve found is that I’m never more alive than when I’m pushing and I’m in pain, and I’m struggling for high achievement, and in that struggle I think there’s a magic” —Dean Karnazes, Ultramarathon runner and author of The Road to Sparta
“Comfort equals boredom”—Michael Hyatt, author of Best Year Ever, Platform: Get Noticed in a Noisy World, and Living Forward
“We experience the strongest positive emotional response when we make progress on our most difficult goals”—Timothy A. Pychyl, psychology professor
God has placed things on your heart that you want to do: write a book, climb a mountain, start your own business, etc. Chances are these things are risky and scary. They are going to take a lot of hard work and effort. These things tend to intrude on the patterns of our current life.
We all want to be comfortable. If we had the choice, we would all choose a life without pain, without strife, where everything we wanted to do was easy. We want to know what each next step entails and know we would succeed. Essentially, we want a life without any pain, fear, or discomfort.
But a life that is only comfortable, that doesn’t test you, doesn’t ask you to risk anything, to be brave, to be daring, or to grow in any way is actually a very boring life.
Deep in our hearts, what we want is not comfort but adventure!
We want to strive towards something meaningful, we want to fight for something we believe in, we want to struggle towards the highest mountain peak. We want to live lives of adventure, excitement, and wonder.
As this year begins, take some time to ask God what adventures He has for you and make this the year that you take a leap of faith, that you climb to new heights, create new and wonderful things. The year you listened to the call of your heart, the call of adventure.