The Other Side of Discomfort
This essay was originally posted January 27, 2026 to Substack.
I’ve been thinking a lot about uncomfortable truths. The kind of thing that exists, but we’re all pretending it doesn’t. A memory you’d rather forget. A conversation you don’t want to have. Or perhaps a closet that needs to be cleaned out, but you know you’re going to have to deal with something in the closet that you’ve been avoiding, and now the closet has become unusable because it can’t fit anymore junk in it, all because you don’t want to deal with the thing you’re avoiding.
That’s the type of discomfort I’m talking about. Life is hard, and I notice myself willingly enduring discomfort less and less. And it’s frustrating, because all the good stuff that I want lives on the other side of some kind of discomfort. You know what I’m talking about here. You want to lose 10 pounds, but don’t want to exercise or change your diet. You want to go on vacation, but you don’t want to cut things from your budget in order to make it happen. You miss an old friend, but you don’t want to face the awkward time, space, and distance that’s been keeping you apart.
Or, maybe it’s something deeper, like admitting you were wrong about something. Apologizing would repair the relationship or the situation, but the anticipation of laying down your pride feels agonizing, so you pretend and maintain your position, even though it feels wrong. Maybe you’ve stayed too long at a job, or in a town, or in a relationship, and you know you’re only delaying the inevitable, but the anxiety and pressure you currently feel are preferable to having a hard conversation and moving on. Maybe you are stuck emotionally because you don’t want to face something that happened to you, and you don’t realize how much it’s affecting your life.
These scenarios are the classic “choose your hard” dilemma, and yet, I am far more guilty of choosing the wrong kind of hard more often than not. Case in point, the closet situation mentioned above—that’s mine. It’s a great metaphor for what I’m describing because dealing with an issue no matter how big or small, emotional or practical, always leads to some kind of peace.
My dilemma involves two catch-all closets in my house. Decent storage space that I want to use to make my life more functional. Easier. You’d think, I’d bite the bullet and spend a weekend cleaning the damn things out, but every time I begin, I quickly realize that I will have to decide what to do with the things my aunt gave me before she died because she thought I could use them. I start calculating what will need to be thrown away, and which items can be donated. Then I realize I will have to pack things and drive them to the donation place. What should I do with my mother’s sewing machine that she won’t ever use again, but has owned since 1988? I don’t even sew.
While these are emotional reasons to pause, over-thinking the process instead of resolving my emotional reasons for not acting, halts not just plans of making my life easier, but it halts other things I want to do. The closet project is overwhelming, so I put it off, and because of that, I’m also putting off inviting anyone to my house because where would my guests’ coats and purses go if I don’t have a usable drop zone. I’d like to use one closet as a butler’s pantry for extra kitchen storage, but I can’t so my kitchen has become crowded and disorganized too. And, now I’m not only putting off a chore I want to accomplish, I’m also putting off my life.
It’s the discomfort I’m avoiding, and I’m sitting here thinking about how a single closet has a ripple effect that doesn’t just touch me or my family. It also touches the ghosts of friendships I could have built and nurtured by inviting folks like me, who simply need a friend, into my congested house with its over-stuffed closets and cluttered kitchen, but I chose not to because I felt my home wasn’t presentable. The funny thing is I can’t think of a single person I know who would mind a little clutter if it meant spending an evening laughing over a warm meal with good, authentic people. I wonder how many potential friends I’ve deprived of a much needed conversation with a loving and accepting person that doesn’t judge or pressure others. I forget how rare that is sometimes.
And, it’s not just the discomfort we subconsciously avoid by choosing to put off confrontations with difficult emotions. By failing to clear things, places, and sometimes people, from our lives that no longer work, we are consciously failing to make room for those that will. Why do we do that?
King Solomon, who was known for his wisdom was the one who said every single thing has a time, purpose, and season under heaven. Everything, every person, role, place, situation, relationship, job, etc., at some point, will have its ending. So, if a thing seems to have run its course in our lives, maybe we should get out of the way and allow it to do so.
A few moments spent being uncomfortable while I process something emotionally, seems like a fine price to pay when the alternative is spending additional time being uncomfortable mentally for however long because I avoided doing the thing prohibiting me from doing what I actually wanted to do. The time will pass anyway, so I’d rather not waste another minute avoiding the uncomfortable truth that my aunt is no longer with us, and sooner than I’d like, my mother will join her in heaven.
The uncomfortable truth here is that my avoidance will never stop time from passing and it won’t prevent me from losing my mother once she has finished running her own race. It only prevents me from participating in mine.
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Thank you for reading and supporting The Common Joy.
—Mack
