Growth and discomfort. They're always linked. You have to be able to be uncomfortable, in order to grow. | lucyflint.com

It's alarming how often I assume that change is easy. That the worthwhile things in my life should be just within my reach. That, for every period of trying hard, I am compensated with, say, a time of taking it slow.

Little bit of strain; lot of pampering. If I'm honest, that's how I want things to work.

Funny how often life doesn't look like that. At all.

Actually, for the last, oh, year and a half, life has looked a lot more like climbing a mountain blindfolded. Hard going, not quite sure when I'll reach the top, and also, I don't exactly know where the trail mix is.

In other words, it's not comfortable.

Which is why I found this quote so, um, comforting, when I read it in Twyla Tharp's fantastic book, The Creative Habit.

The reason things are uncomfortable? It's because you're growing. Stretching into new habits, new ideas, new everything.

Probably isn't very comfortable for a field to be plowed into furrows. Not comfortable for yeast and sugar and milk to start bubbling together at the beginning of bread making. Paving the way for good big changes: It's never comfortable.

Growing as a writer usually means trying a new genre, handing my precious pages to someone else to read, or throwing out chapters and whole drafts to make room for better material. It's never comfortable.

And actually, the most worthwhile and wonderful things in my life? Yeah, they're usually accompanied by moments of intense discomfort.

So maybe I should celebrate a bit, when life feels weird and complicated and absolutely not straightforward. Because even though this acutely uncomfortable moment is zero fun, there are good changes and good growth coming. Which is what I truly do want.

So let's go entertain the uncomfortable. Chuck some confetti at that awkward moment. It's doing good good work.

Our ability to grow is directly proportional to an ability to entertain the uncomfortable. -- Twyla Tharp