Get Uncomfortable.

Or die in the warm womb.

'The quality if your life is inversely correlated with your ability to endure discomfort.' G.I. Gurdjieff paraphrase via 90's gurus.

Contrast that with:

'Verily, the lust for comfort murders the passions of the soul, and walks grinning through the funeral.'  -Kahlil Gibran

The greatest accomplishments in life come after some struggle, and it has to be a real struggle. A significant struggle. There are esoteric reasons for this, however the point is:

the 'essence' is forged in the fire of discord.

What determines the 'significance' of a struggle is how difficult it is for YOU. Once you surmount a difficulty that challenges you on various levels, you have the potential to be 'upgraded'.

We use 'conscious shocks' to bring people to wholeness. And once you're on the path, you can use whatever trauma arises in life as a way to purify yourself and become more effective as a human being.

If you want to 'upgrade' quickly, move through a series of difficult obstacles thoroughly (not only quickly).

YOUR POWER IS A FUNCTION OF VELOCITY - THAT IS TO SAY, YOUR POWER IS A FUNCTION OF THE RATE AT WHICH YOU TRANSLATE INTENTION INTO REALITY. - Werner Erhard

Here's an example of power = velocity.

A wife notices that the toilet is broken.

Husband 1 says I'll get to it, and never does, either for financial, organizational, or logistical reasons.

Husband 2 says 'Ok, I'll get to it tomorrow'. And he finds a part and replaces it a week or so late. It sort of works, though has other problems. Good enough for now.

Husband 3 says. 'Consider it done.' He repairs it that moment, and notices that the toilet is old, and starts to research a replacement.

Husband 4 says 'Ok'. And there's a new toilet installed that same day. 

So notice that 'power' in this definition requires access to energetic resources, whether they be physical energy or finances.

Also, 'power' is the ability to focus attention long enough to accomplish the task. 'Power' requires a certain discipline to do what is most important, in general, and what is most urgent, specifically.

Meditating, learning to focus, increases power.

Power Comes from Enduring Discomfort.

Lift a weight, it hurts. You grow. Sit with a partner and talk about what isn’t working, it hurts. You grow.

Tony Robbins used to say that there are 4 quadrants to consider while planning your day (and thus, your life). This is from an old Time Management program he used to offer.

[Also referred to as the Eisenhower Matrix]

Quadrant 1. Not important. Not urgent.

Quadrant 2. Important but not urgent.

Quadrant 3. Urgent but not important.

Quadrant 4. Urgent and important.

According to this model (which Tony may have borrowed from a mentor, as I notice he often 'borrows' from the older literature), the quality of our lives will be determined by how much time we can put into the 'Important but not urgent' quadrant.

Something like 'starting a business' would go here... or 'Organizing a drawer, re-branding a company, writing a novel you've always been planning, etc.'

The list where you put things that excite you, and when someone asks you about the plan, you say *sigh*  'I really need to do this'.

The quickest way to improve the quality of your life is to go through that 'I really need to do this' list and complete it. Because it clears out energy and gives data for the next level. You don't know what the next level is until you get through the preceding level.

This is why "The quality if your life is inversely correlated with your ability to endure discomfort."

It's necessarily uncomfortable to start on these 'Important but not urgent' tasks, because you have to overcome mental and physical inertia. Also, because you'll need to carve out time around your 'urgent' tasks (meaning sometimes working at night, missing a vacation, giving up short-term income, etc).

So this is an invitation to upgrade your life, in a simple, tangible way.

Most people will pass this by, and go back to scrolling social media.

Would you consider most of that time to be in the 'Not urgent, not important' category. This is actually where most people live the majority of their lives.

Some artists and creatives have it right in an imbalanced way: they'll only do what they perceive as 'important' and create so much urgency around it that it's all they do. (I used to live like this as well). Meaning, paint, paint, paint. It can work in the long term, though it is a bit of a gamble, and things fall apart. Bills go unpaid, food decreases in quality.

My idea of success used to be…