Being Comfortable with Discomfort

Last month, I signed up for a high-altitude trek in the Himalayas. It is going to be the first one I’ll be starting off alone, and the second one overall. I was both excited and scared to sign up.

There were two things that unnerved me. Firstly, whom do I walk/talk with? Up on the mountains with no connectivity…walking and talking is pretty much all that you do. Secondly, who will put the effort to cheer me up if I have any physical discomfort from injuries or a bad stomach? I am pretty fragile - both physically and mentally, at least that is the self-analysis. That is how I feel. People have said otherwise, but I am definitely not going to take them for their word. My terror-stricken thoughts trump their lovely support. The human mind, right?

I made a lot of good friends from my last trek but I had the super-sociable Rahul George, my partner by law (yep! that’s a thing…or make it one!), by my side. He did all the talking while I could just nod my approval, laugh at the jokes and simply be in the background till I felt comfortable. I am an ambivert with introvert functions, but I can swing back and forth depending on the mood. Mood matters!

Talking about my injuries: I have been riddled by too many to count. My patchy knees are a testament to my ineptitude at walking, jumping, running, climbing, cycling, riding, and whatnot. You know the natural instinct we humans are supposed to have when it comes to movement… yeah, I don’t have that. But, for the 80kms I walked in my last trek, I fell down only once and there was hardly any bruise. Nobody caught me in time to prevent the fall, but that day I landed like a pro. I owe it to my body and the work it has been put through to gain that kind of stability on a descent dampened by a downpour. Maybe I am physically better off now or maybe I was just confident of having my safety net by my side (the partner by law!). Guess I’ll find out soon.

So, here is what you know about me so far: I am comfortable in the presence of strangers as long as I don’t have to carry on any conversation, and I move confidently because I know that somebody has always been on the lookout for me (bah!). And I kept on with these oddities, simply because I was always safely snuggled up in that infamous territory - the comfort zone. But I can’t be in there forever. I love treks too much!

Now that I’ve signed up for the trek without the familiar reassurance, I want to lean into this opportunity, go out there and be comfortable with discomfort. I literally want to tie my shoestrings tight! My robust body and mental aplomb are the tools at my disposal. Both are work-in-progress, but that is always going to be the case. If I wait to be an extrovert and a move-xpert combined…I’ll never see the Himalayas ever again.

That’s the case with everything right? All things are a work in progress, all the time. There is always room for improvement. It can seem daunting at times.

We just have to be comfortable with it.