Setbacks and Comfort

At the end of this month, I am going to visit the Philippines with my family. When I bought the plane tickets, inbound travelers from the U.S. had to quarantine for three days. Because of the Omicron variant, this has been extended to five days for vaccinated travelers. I suppose that I can learn from this is that setbacks will happen unexpectedly, and it is easy to get comfortable in certain situations. Bad things can happen at any time, but it does seem as if they happen when one is most comfortable.

With writing, there are these types of setbacks. There is a similarity with writing every day that is like going to the gym. When one builds a routine and gets comfortable with the routine, then things are good. However, miss one day, and it can destroy the whole routine. It is doing something by choice, and we can find any excuse not to do it. Writing is similar. I can choose not to do it for a day or two but that can ruin the routine and discipline that I built up over time. Unless writing were my full-time job, I do not necessarily have to do it every day, but I choose to since I believe it works toward a greater reward.

While I do get comfortable with a general writing routine every day, it is uncomfortable to write every day. I could easily be sitting on the couch watching a screen every day after work. Brazilian Jiu Jitsu works in this same way, as there is a benefit to getting comfortable in an uncomfortable situation. There are eventual rewards to it as well especially from a learning perspective.