The pursuit of discomfort

and my fear of flying.

I’m in an aisle seat. The plane is full. I want to move up the front— I’m near the bathroom. There are two others in my row. I’m uncomfortable.

I’m flying to Merida, Mexico. The Yucatan. I do not like flying. Yet here I am, again. Propelling myself through the air. Still a completely unreasonable, illogical experience in my opinion. Everything is in Spanish. Obviously. My brain is hyperaware of what I do not understand. It’s hard to learn a new language. A few familiar words and I can build context but mostly, I’m attuning to my environment. Sensing body language, watching eye movements, interpreting hand gestures. I brace myself on all levels— mentally, physically, emotionally. Another flight. Another language.

We’re beginning the dreaded ascent. Wheels rolling on the steaming hot tarmac. My mind unravelling, “they know what they are doing, they’ve done this a hundred times before, deep breathes”. Up we go. The plane is shaking an unusual amount, or so I tell myself. You know, flying is very similar to being in a new country. You’re most likely uncomfortable in the new environment— the seat is crammed, the food is subpar, the human in the middle seat is taking up an annoying amount of space. Being in a new country is really no different. Your hotel is further away than you thought, your shoes don’t have quite as much arch support as you hoped, and you’re pretending you’re cool with the speed the uber driver is going. Either way, you have no choice but to embrace the uncomfortable terrain and assimilate rapidly, or drown in the overwhelming sensation of it all. In this case, discomfort is the price you must pay in order to move you towards what you desire.

From what I can tell, the running theme of life, is well, discomfort. In order to experience, to expand you must go through the process of discomfort. Just like learning a new language, or arriving to a new destination. In order to gain context of anything— you need to delve into the uncomfortable world of being a beginner, and being a beginner usually means embracing some level of discomfort to get to comfort. A hard truth to learn, but there is no way of escaping or preventing this initial-awkward-beginner **state. Each time I travel, I’m under the illusion that I won’t experience discomfort, that I won’t experience humanity— my own humanity, that is. “I’ve done it a million times before! What could be different this time?!” I ignorantly think. Yet, each time I fling myself onto another plane, waltz on into another country, or elude myself of the level of Spanish I can actually comprehend, my illusion shatters and I’m re-humbled, re-energised, re-confused, re-agitated, re-reminded that there is a big wide world out there, and it’s not just me, and all the things I think I know. The realisation that the world both does and does not revolve around me is eye-opening and forces me to land myself back down on planet earth and re-attune myself to the frequencies at play. This begins the process of unlearning to relearn how to accept and persist through the uncomfortable state of discomfort.

I’m freaking out. My fingers are frantically tensing and relaxing as the plane jiggles and jumps through the air, colliding with air bubbles and sending my body into waves of panic. Again, I do not like flying. I’m telling myself, “Is this the one? Is this time different? Why are we moving so much? Are we dipping??”. As I said… panic. I turn to look at the flight crew. I try to gauge my life expectancy based on their expressions. They seem… cool, calm and collected. “Okay maybe it’s fine?” I tell myself. “Just get above the clouds and then I’ll reassess my chance of death”.

I wouldn’t normally associate travel with pain— that is if you asked me on a casual Sunday afternoon, strolling down a cute calle of Mexico City. But when I stop, and think deeply for a moment— I am in a form of pain. My brain hurting from the lack of sleep due to catching the early morning flight to try beat the traffic or save a few dollars. My legs are straining from the twenty thousandth step I’ve just taken. My belly aching because I’m either hungry or re-adjusting to the questionable street food. My phone battery draining at an alarmingly rapid rate as I try to translate this damn menu (even though I just upgraded it and was promised better battery life??). I am technically in a world of pain— ranging from first world problem type pain, all the way through to genuine physical pain. Yet… I’m happy?

I’m okay. I’m content. I’m often overjoyed. I’m satisfied. I’m full. But I’m still in pain. How can that be? How can I be so full of pain and be happy about it? Am I mad? Or am I just experiencing the depth and complexity of human nature. The ability to hold both good and bad at the same time? Pain and peace? Comfort and discomfort? At least that’s how it feels in my stomach as I take another bit of delicious, and questionable, unreasonably spicy cochinita pibil.

I’m crammed, my legs too long to be even remotely comfortable in my seat. My right butt cheek and left foot somehow synchronising their pins and needles, only fuelling my frustration and agitation at the world. “How could the world do this to me??”. I think as I let out an angry sigh as if I’m in the Truman show and the producers will alter the conditions. Then I catch the clouds out of the corner of my eye due to the sun glaring through the ant sized windows with all its might. I’m flying over Mexico. I dreamt of this moment back in my dull Sydney apartment, wishing my nights away. “I did this to myself?” I think. I willingly paid for my own discomfort. I chose this. It was not imposed upon me. And I’m rudely reminded that here I am— at the intersection of discomfort and pain in pursuit of comfort, and expansion, once again.

How silly, I left my comfortable surrounding to pursue discomfort— in order to be comfortable. Huh? I hear you… because I’m hearing myself. But why/Por que?

I think there is something deeply humbling and grounding about this process. Of flying when I hate it, of walking when I want to rest, when sounding like an incoherent dummy when trying to communicate in a new language, when eating one more bite even though it’s going to hurt my stomach. I’m feeling. I’m experiencing. I’m tiptoeing on the edge of my own humanity to see where my own cracks appear. What’s too much? What’s too little? What am I even made of? How am I suppose to know who I am, if I don’t put I am to the test?

It pushes me to re-orient and to re-calibrate my own understanding of discomfort and of pain. It forces me into a mindset that exposes my conditioning, or the areas where I lack emotional nourishment. The potholes that need filling, the rips that need mending.

I like that re-calibration process. I like the frustration of not knowing. I like the challenge of learning to accept discomfort and pain. It takes my confidence, the crafted image of myself and distorts it. Actually, shatters it. Over and over again. And I’m again re-humbled by the realisation that I know very little about this vast world, and the silver-lining of excitement, anticipation appears and its the little kid in me just waiting to see what happens now.

When I travel, I get to be in this constant comfort, discomfort, pain, beginner cycle. And I’m reminded every time that this whole world exists in my mind. Everything I’m experiencing is through a lens. And it’s my job to change the lens to get new context, to see new colours, to change the view, to allow perspective in to shape my mind and unravel the I am.

The plane has stabilised, and my anxiety has settled. I’m literally at the gooey center of comfort and discomfort— as I sit here with my knee jammed up against the seat in front of me, my body tense, mind relaxed. I see the clouds, I feel the rattle of the plane, I feel my ears block and I do that weird yawn-wide mouth thing, and I feel the pang of hunger in my belly. Hunger for a taco, and hunger for comfort.

I close my eyes in an attempt to catch up on some of that missed sleep.

“BUENAS TARDES… we are beginning our descent”. The pilot loudly interrupts.

“Oh no”. I think. “Just when I’d finally found some comfort.”