I like to sit back in my favorite chair and sip my coffee. It’s a comfortable chair and I find that I become calm and relaxed. Especially in the winter: If I have my snuggie, my coffee, and my chair; I’m about as happy as a pig in mud. The thing is, though, that when I’m comfortable in my chair, I don’t want to do much else. I even almost hate to finish my coffee because, it it’s only been one cup, I’ll have to get up from my chair and go pour myself another cup. There are days when I’ll only have one cup because I just can’t seem to get up from my comfortable spot. While I think that comfortable time is important for me, in life, I think comfort can be a means to both complacency and complicity.
It may sound strange, but comfort doesn’t always have to be positive. If I’m on my comfy chair and there’s a fire outside my house, I’d better get off of my butt and first, make sure my family and I are safe; and second, try to save my house. If my comfort makes me lazy and complacent, that is, if I get to the point where I am uncritically satisfied with sitting on the couch and don’t want to engage the fire, then my comfort is unhealthy for me.
What’s worse is that in my comfort and satisfaction, if I do not try to put out the fire, then I’m just at fault as the source of the fire. I may as well have taken a match to the dry weeds that gather in the arroyo behind my house; sitting in my comfort, blind and satisfied to the dangers that surround me, does make accountable for the dangers. It’s not OK for me to blindly sit back, comfortable, when things need doing.
Too often, I think people get to places in their lives where they are ok with where they are, even if where they are isn’t healthy for them. I can think of a whole bunch of people I know who are satisfied with their day-to-day lives, even though those lives are killing them. Their satisfaction has made them blind to the fact that their lifestyle is one that needs different and healthier action. What’s worse, to me, are those who KNOW that they are comfortable in their lives, but desire a different course for their lives. To them I say, “You are as much to blame for the state of your life as anything else. You know what you want/need to do, yet you do nothing due to your comfort!”
If someone’s life has gotten too comfortable to see that this world needs him or her, I say: Wake up! There’s work in this world that needs doing and while there are people who have made it their mission to make this world a better place, we all could do something to enact positive change. If we remain in our comfort and do nothing, then, in my opinion, we are just as much to blame as any enemy this world faces. Comfort makes for complicity.
Image Credit: Copyright 2013 by Juan Blea, all rights reserved
