#83: Growth lies in discomfort
#83: Growth lies in discomfort
#GrowthMindset #CosmicJustice #DistractionFree #FindBalance
👋 Welcome to Pursuit, where we explore the art of living well. My name is Amir, and each week, I go over 10 hours of content about personal growth and mental well-being, bringing you four insights and thought-provoking perspectives from leading thinkers. I hope to have a tiny impact on your life and inspire you with the tools to lead a more fulfilling life. Join us on this journey of continuous improvement and discovery.
This week’s discovery:
🌿 Growth lies in discomfort
⚖️ The living presence of justice
🚫 Break the boredom-stimuli cycle
🫶🏼 What I’m sitting with
If you’re interested in listening to this week’s newsletter, you can follow Pursuit’s podcast on Spotify or other popular podcast platforms. Here’s this week’s episode:
🌿 Growth lies in discomfort
In "Why Real Change Feels Weird, Unfamiliar and Wrong", Michael Ashcroft explores the discomfort that often accompanies transformation. He underscores the value of embracing the unknown, urging us to resist the temptation to retreat into our comfort zones and instead confront the discomfort that accompanies new experiences.
“The trick is to learn to stay with the experience of unfamiliarity even in the face of the internal pressure to return ‘home’ to familiarity; to notice that urge to resolve the tension and instead stay with the dissonance of the new. The fact that something is unfamiliar is a good sign that it’s new, because it hasn’t already been mapped as a thing you do all the time.” This perspective invites us to view the unfamiliar not as something to fear, but as a sign of growth and opportunity.
⚖️ The living presence of justice
This episode of the Emerald podcast artfully challenges your view of justice in the world. In times of global upheaval, ecological destruction, and societal inequity, justice can seem very far away. Justice in the modern world is often viewed as a contract, an agreement forged between human beings rather than something inherent to the natural world. And yet, for many cultures and traditions, justice is seen as a living presence, as the actual dynamic flow of cause and effect that serves to keep a larger natural balance.
Tradition after tradition speaks of the larger law of the cosmos and of the human role in aligning to it. At a time when people are experiencing deep grief and anxiety over the fate of the planet, understanding and reconnecting to a living vision of justice can help provide not only a sense of somatic anchor, but a way forward that asks us to align to something both immediate and ultimate.
When discussing justice, we cannot overlook the genocide occurring in Gaza. Witnessing a world community asking for a ceasefire vetoed by the most powerful nation exemplifies a system in crisis - economic, political, but also moral and spiritual. Spirituality isn't just about secluded prayers; it's about recognizing our interwoven nature. The human self, community, nature, celestial bodies, and divinity are all interconnected. These political crises are spiritual because they reveal a damaging worldview where others are seen as less than human, even unhuman.
In response, how do we avoid becoming a mirror image of what we find loathsome? How do we respond without just reacting? It requires a deep spiritual practice.
🚫 Break the boredom-stimuli cycle
Imagine breaking the habit of reaching for your phone every time boredom strikes. Dr. Cal Newport in his conversation with Andrew Huberman about improving focus suggests introducing daily periods of distraction-free time to disrupt this automatic response. By allowing yourself to experience boredom without immediately seeking stimuli, you create a cognitive environment more conducive to focus. This practice helps train your mind to handle boring yet challenging tasks, like deep work, which requires sustained attention without novel stimuli. Newport emphasizes that while boredom itself isn't a source of creativity, developing a tolerance for it is crucial for achieving deep, meaningful work.
🫶🏼 What I’m sitting with
In this week’s essay of Lisa Oliver, she talks about finding balance between productivity and authenticity, embracing imperfection, and cherishing non-immediacy. She reflects on nature's grounding presence and the importance of giving time to truly understand and appreciate life’s experiences. Here’re a few points that resonated with me the most → I am sitting with:
The reality that sometimes, when our worst fears come true, we might still somehow be okay — that some of the things we assume will break us actually don’t; the power in this, even amid the grief.
How kind strangers can be — how interactions with people I’ll most likely never see again can stick with me for so long, knitting a new narrative into my body of how we can be with one another.
What a miracle it is to want to be here, to soften into more aliveness even amid the hurts of this world. What a gift it is to believe there is always a way forward, even if the way is blurry or unclear. How I want to keep leaning into this belief, keep using it as a method of imagining, keep remembering it as a form of hope, an act of defiance against a culture that wants us to believe only this (motions everywhere) is possible.
📸 Love the quotes? Join me on Instagram for daily doses of inspiration, highlights from my readings, and more thought-provoking content. Follow @pursuit.community and let's continue our journey of growth and discovery together!
🎵 Discovery for your ears
You’ll find mostly Ethnotronica, Organic House, World, Disco, and Organic Electronic here:
🎧 If you appreciate the music I carefully select and haven't followed my Spotify playlists yet, now is the perfect time to hit that follow button and join me on this musical journey! 🎶
🌒 Pano: Danceable and electronic obscure songs
🌓 Sisy: Ethnotronica and organic house
🌑 Berghain: Dark, minimal techno and tech house
🌕 Heide: Groovy soul and disco house
🌞 Sonntag: Afterhours shit
🌎 World: From Latin jazz to Turkish psych
🌚 Super Slow: For your intimate moments
Previously on Pursuit:
