I am addicted to comfort, and here I acknowledge that I have a problem. Why do I say that and how can I treat it? Let us discuss it together. I think the issues are quite common for people over 40. Today you are invited to read here, here, here, here, here, and here.
Long lead
This post is on my mind for several years now. Somehow this does not appear to be an urgent issue, and something else always slips in. Several people noticed that I am very spoiled. I easily step out of my comfort zone intellectually, but not physically.
Symptoms
My bed, my work tools, even my cooking tools are of premium quality. I eat relatively simple but very good food: a lot of variety, fresh ingredients, esthetic serving. Unless the weather is nearly perfect, I prefer air conditioning to outdoor activities. At home, most of the chores are offloaded to robots (dishwashing, laundry, iRobot) or my kids (wet cleaning).
How does that limit me? I do not want to travel to certain places, because traveling is uncomfortable or local food does not agree with me. I almost do not do physical work, and when the weather is not good for swimming or walking I tend to gain weight. If for any reason I need to work anywhere except my desk at work or at home, my productivity drops drastically.
Basically it became harder for me to step out of my comfort zone… This is not a health concern, all of my jobs comply with my tastes, and my family accepted my limitations.
Why does it matter?
Here is a list of what I am miss:
- Career opportunities. As I do not really want to visit clients in strange locations and do demos in uncomfortable rooms, my career progress is limited to office jobs.
- Freedom. If I do not want to walk when it is muddy, or hot, or rainy or cold; if I do not like junk food and cakes; if I prefer to work than to “have fun”, my freedom is somewhat limited.
- Socialization. My co-workers often it smelly food from plastic containers and rich cakes that remind me of heart disease. My wife and kids love muddy messy fun, some of the things that I find unesthetic, are a pure delight to them. As a result, I have fewer opportunities to be with people I want to be with.
- Creativity. A large part of creativity is simply stepping out of the comfort zone and doing strange things. The more things I avoid, the more fixed becomes my approach.
- Simplicity. I need a diverse set of specialized tools and experiences to be happy. This diversity is not minimalistic. My storage space is also cluttered.
- Physical activity. I can do swimming in summer, weight-lifting in winter, walking outdoors in spring and autumn, and horse riding on weekends. Probably I can do meditation and flexibility stuff every evening. However, this is not enough to stay in great physical shape
My situation gets worse with time
As I get better things and enjoy more refined experiences, my expectations are slowly increasing. At the same time, as I do not need to deal with adverse experiences, my sensitivity also increases. When I was younger, something like reserve military duty forced me to deal with a harsher environment. I did not like it, and I am literally too old for this shit. When my kids were smaller, I did not have time and attention span for some of my own needs, but now they are my enablers.
To make things worse, they also enjoy all the good things that life can provide. I do not want them to be like me.
Radical change vs radical acceptance
I have three very different solutions for this issue:
- Ignore. Something which I am successfully doing for years.
- Accept. When we willfully take a choice and accept the situation with all its limitations, the limitations become choices. This could encourage a very quick escalation of the situation.
- Change. Radically. The experience needs to be sufficiently long to change the balance of things (homeostasis) and the acceptable level of comfort. Clearly, I really do not want to do this.
There are also partial solutions, like visualization of and guided exposure to certain conditions. I will try to address separate sensations. So where I think the addiction to comfort might be effective?
Productivity
Working with small screens, slow computers, dull knives… This feels profoundly unprofessional and counter-productive. To the point that I prefer to take the job to my desk remotely.
The tradeoff here if complexity vs productivity vs flexibility. I need two computers and 4 screens to generate code effectively. If all I have is just a small laptop, I simply do not have the energy to work with is. This is a vicious cycle. If I had to work with only one laptop, I would use it almost effectively after a short adaptation period. It is simply easier and more fun to adapt to better equipment.
In a similar way, I speedread at least in the 3 languages I know quite well. There are things I miss and probably could get by reading aloud. For example, I used to love poetry, but now I consume very little poetry.
Introducing artificial limitations to become profoundly unproductive for a few days is something I feel very uncomfortable with.
Health
I need to sleep on a relatively tough mattress and low pillow, otherwise, my back hurts. Some people can sleep perfectly well in hammocks. Many can sleep in their chair on their hand. I cannot do that: my back would hurt.
If I stay even in a good hotel and eat the breakfast provided by the hotel, quite often I get sick after 3 days. My body cannot survive the amount of fat and sugar over time. Most people simply love it. Even my wife enjoys it immensely. I need my vegetables. Eventually, I simply buy them in the local markets to have more balanced meals.
When I spend more than a couple of hours outdoors under the warm Mediterranean sun, I overheat. First I need to drink more, and then I get a huge headache. My wife has friends, whom I avoid simply because my wife wants to spend with them more than my health allows. Fortunately, I do not have this issue in winter.
Maybe in some things, it is better to be safe than sorry. I do not actually know how my body could learn to deal effectively with this abuse.
Consequences
Quite often I simply do not want the consequences:
- If my clothes get wet, I feel uncomfortable.
- When I get dirty, I need to clean up not only myself but also what I touch. Too much work.
- Germs. Especially after the COVID19 outbreak. If something appears to be dirty and smelly I do not want to touch it.
- Stress. Certain sounds (and smells) of people who eat in a sloppy way near me really bother me. Especially in a closed space, like a car.
Joy
Beautiful and perfectly functioning things are a joy. I really enjoy the design and responsivity of my phone, the touch of a quality fabric against my clean body, the smell of a good coffee created from beans in front of my eyes.
If the quality of the stuff than I enjoy drops below some threshold, I will be better off without them. Good clean water is better than bad coffee or bad tea.
Visual thinking involves touch
My thinking became visual when I was around 30 years old. When I visualize objects and details, I also automatically visualize textures. We often judge textures by touch. Somehow becoming more visual, I also became more touch-sensitive.
Some studies on rats show that mammals process touch and vision using the same neurons. Touch creates a “zooming effect” for visualizations. We can quickly change focus and zoom in from huge mental palaces to small details of individual objects. Also, adding touch we remember objects better. As a result, I started to visualize touch. For me, this is a professional advantage, but it has side-effects.
I hate slimy slippery surfaces or dirty surfaces, or the touch of many cheap synthetic surfaces. At the same time, I love the feel of polished wood, brushed metal, soft or hard leather. The textures I love to touch are inherently more expensive. Of cause, I can do without these textures, but why should I?
Maybe there is no such thing as comfort addiction?
As I write down my vices, I really do not feel anything extreme or irrational.
I do not fly business class. My cars are pretty ordinary and functional. The size of my flat does not really matter beyond the storage space and privacy. I do not collect exotic objects beyond mt paygrade.
Maybe this whole concept of comfort addiction is a myth, at least in my case?
The withdrawal in case I do not have my comforts is pretty real. I suffer even when the internet speed drops. And also, can an addict be realistic and objective about his addiction?
Subjective reality
If I would give up my comforts, objectively I would probably be OK. But I would feel lousy. Is that important enough?
Probably if there was an intervention and a rehab for comfort addicts, we would have a chance to fight it. As our kids are significantly more spoiled than our generation, and we are more spoiled than our parents could afford, comfort addiction tends to become the social norm.
This means that all of the limitations I listed in the beginning of the article, gradually apply to more people. Moreover, this trend is not likely to change.
Unexpected journey
Tolkien’s hobbits are easy to love. I have the deepest sympathy for the hobbit, whose daily routine is ruined, whose house is crushed by uninvited guests, and who needs to leave everything and go into the unknown. Being drafted to serve a higher purpose is the most effective way to deal with comfort addiction. For now, I will be waiting for some gray wizard to come and drag me into his campaign.
When Maslow created his pyramid of needs, he also wrote a book about self-actualized individuals. These people left behind all the comforts the civilization has to offer, to achieve a higher purpose. As long, as my purpose requires two computers and 4 screens, maybe I should give up some flexibility and freedom.
