The Seduction of Comfort

What is comfort to you?  A good bed with silk sheets, a happy relationship, secure job, cookies and milk? Sure, such things can be oh so comfortable. In fact, most of us see our purpose in life to achieve this comfort. Achieving the “stuff” is what the mind is often motivated by, and our bodies also like the tangible and material. Yet, our souls seek more. Comfort is a great place to return to on a regular basis to rest, feed, and nourish ourselves. It satiates our needs, but it is not the place to live all the time. Living there too long dries us up, it takes out the twinkle in our eyes. That is comfort’s paradox.

Seeking our own personally imagined recipe of comfort is often what drives us, yet it is a mirage that has us crossing deserts to a place that is not meant to be permanent. Now that doesn’t mean it’s less worthy of our journey, for that which takes us forward helps us grow. It is worthy as long as we remember that the destination will change. Once we arrive where we were going, it is often time to go somewhere else. Those are the moments that we can rest in our comfort, receive it fully, nourish ourselves, and satisfy our thirst. Then it will be time to move, evolve, see what’s next.

Taking comfort totally out of the picture doesn’t work either. We need its water and nutrients for our growth. Each of us needs different amounts. The point at which it becomes stultifying, where we can’t breathe freely, is where the soul calls again. The soul wants us to travel in the wilderness. The soul knows we are here to experience much more. It doesn’t need as much comfort as we imagine. Its food is the journey, the quest.

When your eyes don’t shine, it may be time for a a different form of rest – not meaning sleep, but the kind of rest that takes you away from constant routine and has your eyes open in wonder, curiousity, delight. This is a different form of rest, the kind where there is no particular ‘way you’re supposed to be’. Here, you are you without the multiple roles you play. You return to instinct and your senses. You become alive like an animal, fully present in your skin and blood, to sense that which will tell you that you are alive, here and now.