Friends of Dave #114: Uncomfortably Numb
Being uncomfortable is no fun. Guess what? Life is uncomfortable.
I think there is something telling that the very first thing most human beings do when they are born is cry. I have to say "most" because our youngest decided that his first act upon entering the world would be to empty his bladder all over the labor room...then cry. When you gotta go, you gotta go -- kid had his priorities straight.
Child birth, for both mother and baby, is an excruciating experience. And, in just a split second during the process, babies are forced to deal with being uncomfortable for the first time. It's not like they can return to the womb in protest, right? So in the moment babies are born, they figure out that crying seems like the next best thing. It's their way of telling the world, "Yo, for real, I am not comfortable."
This is how we begin our lives -- and it is guaranteed that it will not be the last time we will feel this way. Life is hard and it is uncomfortable. Over the course of time, we each ostensibly adopt other techniques (hopefully in addition to crying) to deal with the feeling of discomfort when we experience it. It is how we learn, how we grow, and how we live.
This has simply been a fact of life throughout human history. From what I am observing, for whatever reason these days intolerance is becoming an increasingly acceptable way to deal with discomfort. When something doesn't go the way we like or anticipated, people are now stopping and declaring "that makes me uncomfortable" and expecting that the world will instantly soothe them.
I heard this a number of times in a bunch of different contexts this past week. Work, personal life, kids, on television. It happens everywhere and seems to be impacting us all physically, emotionally and socially to our detriment. Our collective natural tolerance and resilience to discomfort seems to be at all time low.
I'm sure there are a number of factors that contribute to this happening: from technological advances in medicine seemingly able to alleviate whatever physical or emotional pain we experience; to advances in personal technology that makes it easy for us to hide behind whatever public persona we choose to create for ourselves instead of dealing with things and people directly; to "helicopter" and "lawn mower" parents hovering and clearing obstacles from the paths of their children in order to ensure that they never experience adversity.
As we all learned in our first moments on the planet, life is inherently uncomfortable. Simply eliminating the things that create discomfort altogether will not make everything better -- it effectively makes us numb. And while I believe it is incumbent upon us to be sensitive, empathetic, respectful and open to assisting those who are dealing with real adversity, I'd also like to see us get back to embracing life's challenges more directly instead of wishing (or demanding) they would go away.
So perhaps instead of saying "that makes me uncomfortable" and expecting others to make things right for us in the moment, we say "that makes me uncomfortable" and look to ourselves to figure out what we need do to make things right now and in the future.
Shared some articles I think you are going to really like this week, Friends. Take a look and enjoy. Have a great weekend.
XOXO
Dave
Think on These...
Confessions from a burnt out over-achiever
Can you continue working the way you have been for the next 10 or even 20 years? Your quick answer is probably no. But what we do today, and what we do tomorrow, rapidly becomes the status quo. Until working in a way that is completely unsustainable starts to seem quite normal.
To fully become good enough is to grow up into a world that is itself good enough, that is as full of care and love as it is suffering and frustration.
The desire for greatness can be an obstacle to our own potential.
A Bunch For Your Day Job...
The 3 Elements of Trust that Good Leaders Exhibit
They are: positive relationships, good judgement/expertise, and consistency, with relationships seeming to hold more weight that the other elements. Quick read and surprisingly insightful.
Why Lowering Your Price is Not A Strategy
A price-centric discussion indicates that customers don’t really know what they want. They look at the products as a commodity which they hope will help them achieve their goals. That’s why cheap products are a safe option. If they fail to help the customer, she can take comfort in the fact that she mitigated the damage.
1000 times yes. Read and forward to your friends, Friends.
Inside Foot Locker’s Shift To Experience-Driven Commerce
Digital transformation has meant shifting the focus away from customer transaction value and more toward customer lifetime value, with the goal of engaging, inspiring, and providing a more connected journey to customers across all touch points. THIS IS NOT JUST RELEGATED TO RETAIL. Customer experience is becoming a huge factor in all industries -- take note!
Your Weekly Dose of Randomness...
INFOGRAPHIC: Visualizing Corruption Around the World — www.visualcapitalist.com
This is interesting...and, is it just me, or does Denmark appear to be flipping the rest of the world the bird?
Discount shoe retailer DSW pivots to become . . . a nail salon chain
In related news, no confirmation yet that Sears is considering becoming smoothie chain.
U.S. plush toilet paper use wiping out Canada’s forests, flushing away the future
Well, that just stinks....
Concrete: the most destructive material on Earth
For hundreds of years, humanity has been willing to accept an environmental downside in return for the undoubted benefits of concrete. But the balance may now be tilting in the other direction.
When a media outlet devotes a whole week to a single topic, you know it HAS to be big..all jokes aside, while this is actually a bit long, there is some good knowledge here about the long term hazards that concrete presents to our fragile environment.
And The Last Word....
24 Lessons From Warren Buffett's Annual Letters To Shareholders — www.cbinsights.com
Each year, Warren Buffett writes an open letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders. Over the last 40 years, these letters have become an annual required read across the investing world, providing insight into how Buffett and his team think about everything from investment strategy to stock ownership to company culture, and more. Comprehensive breakdown here by CB Insights -- if you are a card carrying Warren Buffett fanboy/fangirl, some of this may be old news, but definitely worth the time....
And if you don't want to read it, at least we will forever have THIS from Mr. Buffett to make us, well, uncomfortable....