Comfort As A Disease

There is nothing wrong with relaxing.

There is nothing wrong with having a day where you sit on the couch, watch TV, and simply recover. We all need those days.

But there is a difference between choosing to rest and being lulled into inaction.

The difference between the two occurred to me recently after I had a few hours to myself following a stretch of working and traveling. I was physically tired, so I crashed.

But when I reflected on how I actually spent those hours, I realized something: much of what kept me on that couch did not exist twenty years ago.

The cellphone. Social media. High-definition television. Streaming. Endless short-form videos.

All these little comforts have made it incredibly easy to stay put. And when you start looking at comfort from that perspective, you begin to see how easily a few minutes of relaxation can quietly turn into hours of lost potential.

That is what this voicenote is about: Whether the comforts surrounding us have made it easier than ever to be lulled into inaction without even realizing it.

A note before we begin: Unorthodox Perspectives are my podcasts voicenotes and recordings. What you’re about to read is a polished, structured version of that recording.

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• How modern conveniences can quietly turn rest into hours of inaction

• Why the same tired afternoon would have unfolded differently twenty years ago

• How phones, social media, streaming, and high-definition entertainment compound comfort

• Why becoming mindful of small comforts may be one of the simplest ways to reclaim your time

The other day, after working and traveling a lot, I had a few hours to myself.

In those few hours, I just crashed. I basically did nothing.

And you need days like that. You need time to rest and recover. But what I noticed was that even though I was physically tired, I spent a lot of that time scrolling on my phone while sitting on the couch with the TV on.

Again, I know times like these are good, and they can be fun. That is not the point of this discussion. The point came afterward, when I started reflecting on that day and asking myself a question: What is in my current day now that I did not have twenty years ago?

I think that’s a very interesting perspective to look at things through, because twenty years ago I did not have a cellphone.

I did not have a cellphone sitting there that could pull me deeper and deeper into this lullaby state. The couch was still there.

I could still sit on the couch, lay down, relax, or take a nap. But I didn’t have this device beside me that could keep feeding me something every few seconds and make it easier to continue sitting there.

I also didn’t have an HDTV that was so realistic, broadcasting in high definition and making it that much easier to stay on the couch. I probably didn’t have streaming services either, even though in this particular situation I wasn’t streaming anything. But again, it is another thing added to the environment that makes it easier for you to stay put.

And then there is probably the biggest thing I didn’t have: social media.