One of the central themes in the book A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I Learned While Editing My Life (my review here) is that of conflict versus comfort. The author Donald Miller admits to losing himself in daydreams, and I admit to doing the same. Daydreams in which I’m a leaner, stronger version of myself, living a more exciting life than I do now.
But why do we do that? Why do we lose ourselves in front of the TV or computer, gazing and clicking our lives away, instead of going out there and living like the heroes we see on TV and the computer?
In the book, Miller writes that human beings don’t like to be uncomfortable and therefore they seek comfort. Yet, without conflict – not necessarily the kind of conflict that involves violence between people, but a general sort of conflict that goes against you getting your goals – there is no character. Great ambition introduces great conflict, which leads to great character.
At the same time, we don’t want to be uncomfortable, stressed and afraid. We imagine how great it would be to live through conflict, like the heroes we see on the TV, but the great truth is that when you’re in the middle of conflict, you don’t like it in there. You want to have lived through conflict, not to be in conflict. Nobody wants to be doing sit-ups, they just want to have great abs.