71 comments
abhaynayar · 6 days ago
I relate to this a lot due to personal experiences in seeking discomfort for its own sake. I used to get anxious in social situations, to treat that I intentionally went into random social situations that would make me anxious. Over time, it does make you feel less anxious. But if you stop doing it, your anxiety creeps back.

I then realized that change has to be deeper on an identity and lifestyle level. "What is the kind of person you want to become, and what is the kind of lifestyle you want to live" - rather than doing one-off anxiety provoking tasks. In living up to your desired identity and lifestyle, if you face discomfort - THAT is a good discomfort to face.

bawolff · 6 days ago
I feel like targetting discomfort specificly would lead to bad results. Feels like a pretty typical cause vs correlation thing.

Sometimes getting out of your comfort zone is a good thing.

Sometimes that feeling of discomfort is protecting you.

Doing that hobby you were always to nervous too try? probably a good source of discomfort to feel.

Taking sky diving lessons from the sketchy guy who is not really certified? That is probably the bad type of discomfort and you should listen to it.

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kelseyfrog · 6 days ago
My path toward personal growth aims toward discomfort. I'm confused; do other people not do this?

If I shied away from discomfort, I would be an angry, lonely, sheltered person and exactly the opposite of who I want to become.

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ImaCake · 6 days ago
>learning about gun violence.

Maybe this is helpful in the USA, but I hardly see how knowing anything about this counts as "personal growth"? There are plenty of things you can know that actively make you a worse person by making you depressed and thus less engaged with things you can actively act upon.

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