Written By Utkarsh Chawra (Grade 10)
We seek comfort and better comfort at every stage and moment of our lives, rather 99% of humans right now are unhappy because they do not have the level of comfort they desired, be it in any sense. Comfort here refers to the state of a human being where they are at the peak of the satisfaction they desired of. It can be a bigger house you wanted to live in, your financial state, family issues you want to resolve, etc. It is a never-ending cycle.
Sacrifice is always a prerequisite when it comes to better comfort. To want to live in a better state of comfort you will have to sacrifice something or sometimes everything. It is because you simply can’t have it both ways or all the ways. A congested world of 8 billion people and each individual having this notion of a better lifestyle makes it a tedious process.
Hence, the two principles of the world live on are comfort and sacrifice in the collective and general context.
Competition of Comfort
In the economic world and in the business context, the person who gives the most comfort in all forms or focuses on one form wins until there is another person who comes into the picture who offers better comfort.
Even in your social life, you prefer to be with the people who you feel the most comfortable with. In the first-person perspective, you try to be the person who offers the best comfort to people to seek their validation or in general too.
Sacrifice is a prerequisite for gaining better comfort. The sacrifice of something or of the previous comfort is the first step in acquiring the desired comfort.
Even vice versa, when you sacrifice the desire to have a new comfort to be satisfied with the current one.
The Principle on which Sacrifice and Comfort live
This principle is also one of the Noble Truths of Buddha. It states the common dissatisfaction default we all have with things in life.
My theory states that this principle which dates back to one of the Noble truths is one of the major underlining reasons for this need for better comfort to occur. Let’s understand it with an example. Imagine you have a certain type of craze for shoes and there is this one pair of shoes you want, and one day you finally are able to buy them. For a few weeks, you would be all jumpy and excited to wear those shoes and go out. After a month or two you will not have the same excited feeling when you wear that shoe and go out. This is because of two reasons; one is that you already know and have gotten used to the fact that you own the shoe that you always wanted once. Second is because of the principle of the default dissatisfaction every human has in them. Now a new shoe comes in the store and it’s trending all over and now you want those new shoes. Here is where the whole concept of “Comfort and Sacrifice” comes in play. You sacrificed your satisfaction with your current shoes for a new shoe that is shown as a sign of better comfort.
This is embedded in all of us and is inevitable and bound to happen at every stage of our life.
Trust the process
Whenever you are aiming for better comfort, the process of getting it is always going to be uncomfortable. Many give up at the sight of the process they know they’ll experience and many give up after a while or right after starting the process. Comparatively, the process of the things that should not be desirable is easier than the things that should be desired for collective and individual well-being. Many different kinds of privileged individuals do get things without going through the process whereas other general people have to go through it to get that particular comfort. This becomes the grounds for criticizing them. In a way, everyone is privileged in some or the other way.
For any kind of attainment one desires, one should be aware of the challenges and sacrifices which come with it. Then they can decide to choose whether it is worth it to sacrifice whatever is required or they can work with what is already there.
Featured Image Courtesy – Dreamstime.com
