Conflict vs. Comfort

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.

And yet, the expe­ri­ence of con­flict, the push against odds to achieve your heart’s desire, is what builds your char­ac­ter in the end, not the actual heart’s desire itself. At the same time, you don’t want to be look­ing for con­flict sim­ply for the sake of expe­ri­enc­ing con­flict, you want to be look­ing for a goal wor­thy enough to inspire you to go on even through conflict.

What’s my wor­thy goal? No answers here, just won­der­ing out loud.