It wasn’t the kind of conversation I expected in such a pampered crowd.
By some fluke of seating arrangements at GMA’s recent anniversary dinner, I found myself separated from my usual news colleagues. Instead, I landed at an artistas table, right beside one of the network’s glamorously dressed leading ladies. I’ll confess, I had to discreetly look up her latest movies and shows on my phone just to avoid sounding completely clueless.
Armed with a crash course in her filmography, I made small talk about her career. She indulged me for a few minutes with some chika about recent roles, then shifted gears.
“I’m taking a month off to go to India,” she said, her eyes lighting up. “I’m studying to be a yoga trainer. Not to actually teach, it’s more for myself.”
It would be her third trip to India, not exactly your typical celebrity getaway. There, among a billion strangers, no one cared who she was. Maybe that was the point.
Then she told me about climbing an active volcano in Guatemala. She had joined a hiking group as a solo traveler.
“I like being forced to meet strangers,” she said. “Here, it feels more limiting.”
On that climb, she wasn’t a screen idol. She was just another hiker in a borrowed sleeping bag that, by her guess, hadn’t been washed in a while.
Amid the glamor of that dinner occasion, her fond recollection of a smelly sleeping bag beneath a lava-spewing volcano seemed jarringly out of place… yet strangely grounding, even humanizing.
Acting is no easy profession; everyone knows that. Yet as with any successful career, comfort can creep in. And with it, a strange urge: to intentionally seek discomfort, if only for a while.
This isn't to romanticize the idea of a movie star “roughing it.” Just dreaming of camping in a foreign country is a luxury most people can’t afford.
Still, for those who can afford it, how many actually would? Why pitch a tent when you can check into a five-star resort?
Modern societies are obsessed with comfort, often the ultimate aspiration. That’s why so many of the well-off seem tortured in the face of tropical heat, which is perfectly normal for the vast majority.
Recently, at an al fresco restaurant, I watched a large family gathered for lunch around a table. A tito was teasing a kid no older than ten about whether he could handle eating without aircon. I imagined the child’s life: from air-conditioned home to air-conditioned car to air-conditioned school. A perfectly climate-controlled existence.
The kid should rebel, if he knows what’s good for him. (To be fair, he seemed to be enjoying his lunch just fine.)
There’s a school of thought that says constant comfort leads to stagnation. That makes a lot of sense to me.
There’s a recent book that makes the case directly: “The Comfort Crisis (Embrace Discomfort to Reclaim Your Wild, Happy, Healthy Self).”
“Most people today rarely step outside their comfort zones,” the author, Michael Easter, writes. “We are living progressively sheltered, sterile, temperature-controlled, overfed, underchallenged, safety-netted lives.”
The result? Many of us have become physically soft, mentally brittle, and even spiritually hollow.
Michael Easter promotes the idea of a mindful embrace of discomforts that can be good for you — even acts as ordinary as a cold shower (when a hot one is available), fasting, and a harder workout.
Voluntary discomfort reconnects us with ancestral experiences — like stillness, solitude and nature — that prepared humans for struggle, not the sofa.
The modern world, especially in cultures like the Philippines where midnight karaoke or blaring bus TVs are normal, leaves little space for quiet or introspection.
But it's when we unplug, often mistaken for boredom, that our minds calm down and find creative clarity.
Easter blends science with personal adventures (he cites a personal month-long hunting expedition in the Alaskan wilderness) to produce his recommendations.
One of those is occasionally pushing your limits, inspired by the ancient Japanese purification practice of “misogi.” Easter modernizes it into an annual challenge with two rules:
- It should be 50% likely to fail.
- Don’t die.
Even if you fail, the experience can deliver something transformative: fortitude, the kind that makes lesser challenges feel conquerable by comparison.
The point is recognizing when comfort, however you define it, has started to stifle your growth or leave you feeling adrift. That’s the moment to deliberately step into discomfort, to challenge yourself in ways that stretch your limits.
For me, that moment came when I took up rock climbing as a senior citizen. It’s also a way to bond with my Gen Z son, who competes in the sport. I'm terrible at it. But the slow, stubborn progress I make is giving me something that feels a lot like fortitude. It will come in handy for the tougher challenges ahead.
These reflections were prompted by my dinner seatmate, the leading lady who is about to leave her comfort zone and head to India. We ended up talking about how even the Beatles, at the height of their success, took time off to go to India to study yoga and meditation.
They spent long stretches in silence, adjusted to a vegetarian diet, and shed many of their creature comforts. From the manic pace of rock-and-roll, they intentionally slowed down to a near stillness.
That time of discomfort and introspection ushered in one of their most creatively fertile periods.
Most of us will never reach the creative heights of the Beatles. But we can become better versions of ourselves. And that journey often begins by mindfully choosing to do hard, uncomfortable things.
(Photo by Alon Severino)
