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A review by devradevra
The Comfort Crisis: Embrace Discomfort to Reclaim Your Wild, Happy, Healthy Self by Michael Easter
adventurous
medium-paced
2.0
Michael Easter is a former alcoholic whose new addiction is doing the most difficult thing possible just to feel alive.
As supporting evidence for his thesis that doing the most difficult thing possible makes you a better person, he uses the Buddha, who lived a life of asceticism after leaving his cushy, princely life. The author either does not know or does not care that the Buddha left asceticism too in favor of the Middle Way, which claims to lead to enlightenment by avoiding extremes.
The author follows a new-age hunter on a five week long trip to the remote Alaskan arctic to hunt caribou, claiming, again, that it will make him a better person, and also a better father. I did not know that the way to become a better father was to leave your kids for five weeks, but after reading his account of the extreme weather and natural beauty, I still do not know that to be true.
I think it is probably true that a little discomfort makes you a tougher person, and maybe more empathetic. The only constants in life are uncertainty and discomfort, so learning to be comfortable being uncomfortable will make your life easier. That is not what Michael Easter is saying. He is saying put rocks in your shoes, wear a heavy backpack, and have someone fly you to Alaska so you can hunt your own meat while almost freezing to death, because once you finish doing all those things, you will appreciate not doing them so much more.
As supporting evidence for his thesis that doing the most difficult thing possible makes you a better person, he uses the Buddha, who lived a life of asceticism after leaving his cushy, princely life. The author either does not know or does not care that the Buddha left asceticism too in favor of the Middle Way, which claims to lead to enlightenment by avoiding extremes.
The author follows a new-age hunter on a five week long trip to the remote Alaskan arctic to hunt caribou, claiming, again, that it will make him a better person, and also a better father. I did not know that the way to become a better father was to leave your kids for five weeks, but after reading his account of the extreme weather and natural beauty, I still do not know that to be true.
I think it is probably true that a little discomfort makes you a tougher person, and maybe more empathetic. The only constants in life are uncertainty and discomfort, so learning to be comfortable being uncomfortable will make your life easier. That is not what Michael Easter is saying. He is saying put rocks in your shoes, wear a heavy backpack, and have someone fly you to Alaska so you can hunt your own meat while almost freezing to death, because once you finish doing all those things, you will appreciate not doing them so much more.