Why Comfort Is Killing Us: The Psychology of Productive Struggle
I once had a mentor tell me that the thing we avoid, the thing we're so scared of happening—well, that thing might as well be our greatest wish…. Our ability to make the fears we avoid come true is one of the most amazing things I've ever witnessed as a clinician and in my own life. It is astounding how excellent we are at controlling our destiny when operating within avoidant patterns.
Think about it: What are the things you avoid because of fear or insecurity? I bet those exact things keep happening to you.
Are you afraid of rejection? Notice how you reject others first or sabotage relationships before they can hurt you. Are you terrified of failure? Watch how you avoid trying anything where you might not succeed, guaranteeing you never will. Are you afraid of being seen as incompetent? Observe how you stay quiet in meetings and never contribute ideas, ensuring you remain invisible and undervalued.
This is what we all experience with our avoidance of discomfort. We become architects of our own worst fears. I tell people we are the writers and directors of our lives, but through avoidance, our unconscious writes the script and directs the scenes….
But what if I told you this isn't just a personal pattern? What if I told you this may become the defining characteristic of an entire generation?
The Pattern I See Every Day
For as long as I've been talking with clients about leaning into discomfort, I've watched everyone avoid the suggestions that would help or heal them, whether it be exercise, productive pursuits, creative endeavors, self-care, social engagement, or facing conflict, both internal and interpersonal. But as is in our human nature, they would rather stay comfortable in that place of discomfort than risk the true discomfort of change.
As I've seen this pattern play out repeatedly in my clients, I've come to ask myself, where the hell has our agency gone? Could we have accidentally programmed learned helplessness into the human condition?
Consider this: When was the last time you really sat with boredom? When did you get lost? Figure out something without immediately pulling out your phone? Make any decision that isn't backed by some algorithm pushing a recommendation?
We've systematically eliminated every form of productive discomfort from daily life. There is no friction anymore, nothing that builds the callus of resilience in our psyche.
The Laboratory Revelation
The result? We now see what psychologist Martin Seligman observed in his groundbreaking studies on learned helplessness.
In 1967, Seligman made a disturbing discovery. When subjected to unavoidable discomfort, animals develop what he termed "learned helplessness"—even when escape is possible, they lie down and accept the pain. At a fundamental level, they had learned that their actions didn't matter; they had lost their agency.
The symptoms were unmistakable:
Low general activity and poor learning
Disorders of sleep and feeding
Reduced immune status
Neurotransmitter disruption similar to what is seen in Depression
The symptoms that are observed in these studies are so strikingly similar to what we see playing out in the mental health pandemic going on around us. What has happened to us if learned helplessness is directly connected to loss of agency and self-determination?
But here's the critical insight: These behaviors only occurred in captivity. Animals in the wild, facing real challenges and maintaining agency over their environment, never developed these patterns.
The animals had been conditioned into helplessness through repeated experiences where their actions had no meaningful consequences.
The Evolutionary Anxiety Mismatch
Since the Industrial Revolution, we've had technology and tools—cars, phones, appliances—but we were still required to struggle. We still had daily frustrations that we were meant to overcome. We had to overcome barriers and obstacles that no longer exist. We got lost and had to figure out direction, or even chart our way. If we even had the time to get bored, we had to entertain ourselves. We had to wait for things, work through problems, and develop patience.
But in the last 20 years, the digital revolution has eliminated even these basic frustrations.
No more getting lost—our GPS tells us the way. No more boredom—instant movies, music, or any other form of quick dopamine is there at the tap of a finger. No more waiting—everything is instantly streaming into our brain. No more figuring things out—Google has every answer.
We've systematically removed all friction points in our world that served to build our frustration tolerance as a person and as a society.
Meanwhile, our anxiety systems were designed for hypervigilance against actual threats—predators, environmental dangers, immediate physical risks that required quick action and then resolution. These systems evolved to handle real-world concrete challenges and threats over millions of years. Still, we've created an environment that bypasses every evolutionary adaptation we developed in just two decades.
Now, those same alarm systems are constantly firing at virtual threats: difficult emails, social interactions, networking events. Our nervous system treats sending a difficult text as if we're facing a saber-tooth tiger. The result? We avoid, avoid, avoid—trusting our Stone Age alarm systems in a Technological World, never discovering that these "threats" can't actually hurt us.
The Digital Zoo
And this is happening because we've accidentally created a digital zoo. Just like wild animals placed in captivity develop "stereotypic behaviors"—repetitive, purposeless actions that serve no function and never occur in nature—we're developing our own version: endless scrolling, compulsive checking, purposeless digital engagement.
The physical changes in captive animals are devastating: thinning of the cerebral cortex, reduced blood flow, decreased dendritic connections, and chronic stress affecting the hippocampus and amygdala—the exact brain regions involved in learning, memory, and emotional regulation.
Sound familiar?
Real challenges chronically understimulate our arousal systems, and they are overstimulated by threats that may actually just be perceived and not concrete. We've created an environment so frictionless, automated, and responsive to our immediate wants that we've lost the fundamental human experience of agency. Are we devolving emotionally? As a species?
What We've Really Lost: Agency
This isn't really about comfort, technology, or even learned helplessness. It is about agency—our fundamental ability to assert our will over our lives, to believe that our actions matter, and to feel that we have meaningful control over our circumstances.
Agency is the foundation of mental health. It's the belief that you can influence outcomes, that your choices have consequences, that you are the author of your own story rather than a passive victim of circumstances.
Without agency, we cannot be purposeful in our actions. Instead, we live predominantly in a reflexive state—reacting rather than choosing, consuming rather than creating, following rather than leading. We are rarely purposeful, deliberate, and plan our lives with the detail that we had to in our ancestral past.
We've systematically dismantled our capacity for agency….
Algorithms decide what we see, buy, and believe. GPS eliminates the need for spatial navigation skills. Instant entertainment prevents us from learning how to self-soothe. Social media provides artificial connections without the effort of real relationships. Algorithms choose our music, movies, and even romantic partners.
We've become observers of our lives instead of active participants.
Each time we reach for our phone instead of sitting with boredom, we train ourselves that discomfort is intolerable. Each time we let an algorithm choose for us, we atrophy our decision-making muscles. Each time we avoid a difficult conversation or challenging task, we reinforce the belief that we can't handle hard things.
The result? A generation that feels powerless in their own existence—anxious, depressed, and stuck in patterns they desperately want to change but feel incapable of changing.
How We Reclaim Agency in 2025
And here we are in the absolutely insane year 2025, where it feels like there's more to avoid than ever before: political chaos, economic uncertainty, climate anxiety, social media toxicity, AI disruption, and constant notifications demanding our attention.
The natural response? Avoid more. Scroll more. Numb more. Escape more. I'm right there with you…
But here's what Seligman's later research revealed: Learned helplessness can be unlearned. When animals (and humans) rediscover that their actions have meaningful consequences, the symptoms reverse. Agency can be restored, it actually isn't that hard either….Well in theory that is.
The solution isn't to abandon technology and return to some pre-digital existence—that's neither possible nor desirable. Instead, we must begin to practice agency restoration in small, concrete ways while living in our current reality.
What we need are corrective emotional experiences.
This is a fundamental concept in psychology: we have to put ourselves out there to relearn that discomfort is safe. We need to prove to our nervous system, through direct experience, that uncomfortable emotions are merely that—emotions.
Here's what most people don't realize: it's the anticipatory anxiety that we're really avoiding. This anxiety deludes us into believing that the thing we need to do—having that difficult conversation, going to the gym, sending that email—is so terrifying and unbearable that we can't possibly do it. So instead, we choose to sit in the "safer" discomfort of guilt, shame, or chronic worry.
The anticipatory anxiety is the delusion we must break through. Because, almost always, the actual experience is far less painful than the story our anxiety tells us about it.
They feel overwhelming, they feel dangerous, they feel like there's a madman coming at us with a knife, but they cannot actually hurt us…they CANNOT GET US!
Emotional discomfort is something we are more in control of than we realize.
Your anxiety about sending that difficult email? It's just a feeling. Your discomfort with sitting in silence for ten minutes? It's just a sensation. Your fear of looking awkward in social settings? It's just a thought pattern.
The feeling isn't the problem—it's our belief that we can't handle it. I often tell my clients, "Pathology occurs when we are afraid of what we feel." Avoidance is always at the root of pathology…
Every time you deliberately choose to experience discomfort and discover you survived it, you create a corrective emotional experience. You prove to your brain: "Oh wait, I can actually handle this. The feeling passed. I'm still here. I'm still okay." This is why every time I observe anticipatory anxiety in my children, and then we have a positive experience with that event..I always bring that to their attention. It is the thoughts we are afraid of…not the experience.
This is how agency is rebuilt: One corrective experience at a time.
Each time you sit with boredom instead of reaching for your phone, you prove you can handle mental discomfort. Each time you have a difficult conversation instead of avoiding it, you prove you can handle social discomfort. Each time you try something new instead of staying safe, you prove you can handle uncertainty.
The path back to agency isn't about eliminating discomfort—it's about changing your relationship to it. Moving from "I can't handle this feeling" to "This feeling is temporary and manageable."
The Practice of Productive Struggle
The path back to agency starts with one radical act: Choosing discomfort over comfort…
These are not massive, overwhelming challenges but small, intentional encounters with productive struggle: sitting with boredom for five minutes, having one difficult conversation, completing one task you've been avoiding, and making one decision without consulting your phone.
It is about sitting down and being deliberate with your time, and your intention…
Each time you deliberately choose discomfort, you prove to yourself that your actions matter. Each small act of agency builds the neural pathways of self-determination. Each productive struggle strengthens your belief that you can handle hard things.
This blog will be about how we reclaim our birthright as agents of our own lives, one uncomfortable choice at a time.
Because comfort isn't just failing to serve us—it's actively killing the very thing that makes us human: our ability to grow, adapt, and create meaningful change in our lives.
The wild is calling. It's time to leave the digital zoo.
Next week: "When Nothing Feels Worth Doing: How Lost Agency Creates the Depression Epidemic"
What productive struggle will you choose today?
