The Boundaries We Never Meant to Build
What if the discomfort we're trying to avoid is also keeping us from experiencing more of life?
There's a certain irony in setting out on an extended road trip filled with unknowns, meticulously planning for practically every conceivable eventuality, only to take three wrong freeway exits trying to leave a city you've successfully navigated for more than 22 years.
And yet, that's exactly what happened to me.
The adventure involved a new electric vehicle, three little dogs—two of whom had never experienced a road trip of this magnitude—and thousands of miles of unfamiliar territory.
There were pet friendly hotel reservations, charging stations, contingency plans, dog food considerations, and enough organizational lists to satisfy even the most enthusiastic project manager.
As someone who has spent much of her professional life evaluating risk and anticipating potential outcomes, I approached the undertaking with considerable enthusiasm for preparation.
I planned.
And planned.
And planned some more.
And then I couldn't get out of Los Angeles.
Los Angeles.
The city I'd called home for more than two decades.
Apparently, I could organize an elaborate road trip involving three dogs and an electric vehicle, but successfully navigate my way out of my own city?
That was asking a bit much.
Somewhere between the second and third wrong turns, I found myself laughing at the absurdity of it all.
Despite my best efforts to anticipate every conceivable complication, the very first challenge was one I hadn't even imagined.
And the experience brought to mind a question I've been contemplating for years.
We spend an extraordinary amount of energy trying to make our lives more comfortable, more predictable, and more certain.
But how much of life are we missing in our efforts to avoid the uncomfortable?
The Comfort of What We Know
Familiarity has a powerful appeal.
We know our routines. We understand our circumstances. We know what to expect from the environments we've built around ourselves.
Even when those circumstances no longer reflect what we want, there's comfort in knowing how to navigate them.
And when our familiar world is disrupted, our instinct is often to retreat.
To return to what we know.
To wait until we're more certain.
To convince ourselves that perhaps the timing isn't quite right.
Of course, those decisions can be entirely reasonable. We have responsibilities, financial realities, relationships, and obligations that deserve thoughtful consideration.
But at times, what we're really trying to avoid isn't the experience itself.
It's the discomfort of not knowing how the experience will unfold.
And I wonder how often that discomfort quietly determines the boundaries of our lives.
How many opportunities have we declined?
How many conversations have we avoided?
How many dreams have we postponed?
Not because they weren't meaningful to us, but because pursuing them required us to enter unfamiliar territory.
What if, in our efforts to avoid discomfort, we're also avoiding some of the very experiences that might make our lives extraordinary?
Learning to Sit in the Uncomfortable
Years ago, a yoga instructor shared a perspective that has stayed with me ever since.
She described yoga as an opportunity to learn how to sit in the uncomfortable.
To remain present when a posture becomes challenging. To notice the instinct to move, adjust, or escape the sensation. To breathe and allow ourselves to experience the moment rather than immediately trying to change it.
Of course, there's an important distinction between the manageable discomfort of a challenging posture and pain that signals potential harm.
But within that distinction lies a powerful lesson.
The practice is learning that we can experience discomfort without immediately needing to escape it.
And over the years, I've come to appreciate how profoundly that lesson extends beyond the yoga mat.
Because life presents us with uncomfortable moments whether we invite them or not.
Uncertainty. Disappointment. Vulnerability. Difficult conversations. Unexpected change.
Even experiences we're genuinely excited about can bring discomfort.
And when that happens, our attention often shifts away from the experience itself and toward finding a way out of it.
We begin wishing things were different.
Wishing we were somewhere else.
Wishing we already knew how everything would turn out.
But what happens when we stop fighting the moment we're experiencing?
The Experience We Resist
There's a story about an American meditation teacher named Shinzen Young that beautifully illustrates this idea.
During his training at a Buddhist monastery in Japan, he participated in a demanding winter purification practice that involved pouring freezing water over himself.
The conditions were so cold that water froze on the floor, and even his towel became frozen.
Initially, the experience was extraordinarily difficult.
But as he worked with his attention, he discovered a remarkable distinction.
When his mind wandered away from the immediate experience, the suffering became more difficult to bear. When he brought his attention fully into the present moment, his relationship with the experience changed.
The water was still freezing.
The physical sensations hadn't magically disappeared.
But by learning to experience the moment rather than continually resisting it, he found that the discomfort became more manageable.
I've thought about that story many times.
Because isn't that so often what we do in our everyday lives?
We encounter discomfort, and immediately our minds begin searching for an escape.
We imagine how much better things would be if the circumstances were different.
We anticipate everything that might go wrong.
We mentally transport ourselves into some future moment when the discomfort will finally be over.
And in doing so, we may create an additional layer of distress around the very experience we're trying to avoid.
There's a difference between experiencing discomfort and struggling against the fact that we're uncomfortable.
Sometimes the struggle to escape the moment becomes more consuming than the moment itself.
And that raises a question I find fascinating.
How much of our lives do we spend wishing we were somewhere other than where we are?
Not physically, necessarily.
But mentally and emotionally.
How many moments are we missing because we're so preoccupied with trying to make them different?
Learning to sit in the uncomfortable isn't about seeking suffering or tolerating circumstances that are genuinely harmful.
It's about recognizing that discomfort is an inevitable part of being human—and that we don't have to spend our lives trying to escape every experience that doesn't feel comfortable.
When we stop making comfort a prerequisite for being present, we create space to experience more of life.
Including the parts we never could have anticipated.
The Bed and the Coffee Table
More than two decades ago, I made a decision that would profoundly change the course of my life.
In February 2004, I was visiting Los Angeles from Toronto when I happened to encounter someone I'd met only once before.
He'd been a keynote speaker at an event I'd attended in Toronto the previous month. By sheer coincidence, he was standing directly in front of me in line at a Starbucks in Beverly Hills.
We recognized each other and arranged to meet for coffee the following day.
During our conversation, he made an observation that would change the course of my life.
"Well, you know, Jo, no one is going to take you seriously for a job here in LA unless you have an address and phone number here."
And in that instant, it was as though a light switch had been flipped.
I was moving to Los Angeles.
There was no lengthy deliberation. No carefully constructed five-year plan. In the space of a few seconds, I'd made a decision that would fundamentally change the direction of my life.
I didn't have a job waiting for me. I didn't have a home. And I certainly had no idea how I was going to make it all work.
But the decision had been made.
I returned to Toronto and began dismantling the life I'd built there.
Among the possessions I had to part with was my beloved 1920s jazz upright piano.
It was the first piano I'd owned as an adult, purchased after my divorce when I was establishing a home of my own.
That piano represented far more than an instrument.
It represented independence. Financial freedom. The joy of reclaiming a part of myself that had always mattered deeply to me.
And now I was preparing to let it go.
Not because the independence and freedom that piano represented mattered any less, but because I valued the possibility of what lay ahead even more.
The freedom to explore. To create new experiences. To discover a life beyond the one I already knew.
I wasn't abandoning what mattered to me. I was making a choice about what mattered most.
Then came another moment I remember vividly.
I was standing in my apartment, waiting for someone who was coming to buy my bed and coffee table.
And suddenly, I thought:
I could stop this right now.
I could tell them I've changed my mind. I'm not selling the furniture. I'm staying in Toronto.
I could keep my apartment.
I could keep the life I knew.
I could abandon this rather audacious idea of driving across a continent to begin a life I knew almost nothing about.
And for a moment, that possibility was incredibly tempting.
Because the life I was leaving was familiar.
The life I was heading toward was anything but.
I didn't know how I would find work.
I didn't know where I would live.
I didn't know whether I could create a life in Los Angeles that would be as fulfilling as the one I'd established in Toronto, let alone one filled with even greater freedom, possibility, and experiences.
But I knew I wanted to find out.
And I recognized that if I allowed the discomfort of not knowing to determine my decision, I might never discover what was possible.
So I sold the bed.
And the coffee table.
And I went.
Not because the uncertainty had disappeared.
Not because I suddenly felt completely confident.
But because I was willing to experience the discomfort of not knowing how things would unfold.
Looking back over more than two decades, I can see how profoundly that decision shaped my life.
There have been extraordinary experiences, wonderful relationships, unexpected opportunities, and challenges I couldn't possibly have anticipated.
Not every moment has been easy.
Not every experience has unfolded as I hoped.
But I wouldn't have known any of it had I chosen to remain within the comfort of the life I already knew.
And I often think about that woman standing in her apartment in Toronto.
The one who could have called the whole thing off.
How much of her life would she have missed if she'd decided that being uncomfortable was reason enough not to go?
One Foot in Front of the Other
Which brings me back to that more recent road trip.
Although the circumstances were very different, there was a familiar feeling about preparing for another journey into the unknown.
There were countless practical considerations to work through.
Arrangements for the house, the garden, and the pool. Professional obligations that needed to be accommodated. Travel logistics, unfamiliar charging routines, and the rather substantial responsibility of undertaking the adventure with three dogs.
At various points, I wasn't entirely sure how I was going to make everything come together.
And I was prepared to accept that perhaps it wouldn't.
If the practical arrangements couldn't be made, I was willing to let the idea go.
But I wasn't willing to abandon the possibility simply because I didn't yet know how to make it happen.
So I began working through what needed to happen.
One conversation.
One arrangement.
One decision.
One step at a time.
And gradually, the pieces came together.
That doesn't mean I ignored the risks or abandoned my responsibilities.
Quite the opposite.
I prepared thoughtfully because the experience mattered to me.
But I also accepted that no amount of planning could guarantee that everything would unfold exactly as I imagined.
And when those three wrong freeway exits happened, I had a choice.
I could become frustrated that the journey wasn't going according to plan.
Or I could laugh at the absurdity, find my way back to the correct freeway, and continue.
I chose the latter.
And perhaps that's another important dimension of learning to sit in the uncomfortable.
We can acknowledge that an experience isn't unfolding as expected without allowing that disappointment to overshadow the journey itself.
We can make mistakes without concluding that we've made the wrong decision.
We can encounter uncertainty without needing to resolve every unknown immediately.
And we can allow ourselves to be present for the journey rather than measuring every moment against how we thought it was supposed to unfold.
Because sometimes the unexpected detours become part of the story we remember most fondly.
What Might We Be Missing?
I've been thinking about all of this as I contemplate another lifelong aspiration.
Writing a book.
It's a dream I've carried for as long as I can remember.
And once again, there are plenty of unknowns.
I don't know how the process will unfold.
I don't know whether the finished book will find a large audience, a small audience, or something in between.
I don't know whether it will ever produce a meaningful financial return.
But I've realized that none of those outcomes is the reason I want to write it.
I want to experience writing a book.
I want to explore the ideas and experiences that have shaped my understanding of life.
I want to discover what emerges through the process of putting those reflections into words.
And perhaps one day, I'd simply like to hold that finished book in my hands and know that I finally did what I'd spent decades imagining.
There will undoubtedly be uncomfortable moments along the way.
Moments of uncertainty.
Moments when I question what I'm writing.
Moments when the process feels more difficult than I anticipated.
But I don't want the discomfort of those moments to prevent me from experiencing an aspiration that matters deeply to me.
And that brings us back to the question at the heart of this reflection.
Why would anyone deliberately want to learn to sit in the uncomfortable?
Not because discomfort is inherently valuable.
Not because we should seek out suffering.
And not because every uncomfortable experience will lead to an extraordinary reward.
But because discomfort is part of life.
And if we spend our lives trying to avoid it, we may inadvertently avoid the very experiences that give our lives meaning.
The conversations that deepen our relationships.
The opportunities that expand our understanding of ourselves.
The experiences that introduce us to people, places, and possibilities we never imagined.
The moments of unexpected joy that could never have been planned.
And even the difficult experiences that teach us what matters most.
We cannot be fully present for a life we're constantly trying to escape.
The Freedom to Experience More of Life
I've come to believe that learning to sit in the uncomfortable is ultimately about freedom.
Not freedom from discomfort.
But freedom from the belief that we must eliminate discomfort before we can fully participate in our lives.
It's the freedom to remain present when things don't unfold as expected.
To experience uncertainty without immediately retreating toward the familiar.
To pursue a meaningful experience without knowing how the story will end.
And perhaps most importantly, to recognize that the richness of life isn't found exclusively in the moments when everything feels comfortable.
It can also be found in the unfamiliar.
The unexpected.
The imperfect.
The moments when we don't have all the answers.
And the experiences we might never have allowed ourselves to have if we'd insisted on knowing how everything would turn out.
Robert Frost famously ended The Road Not Taken with the words:
"And that has made all the difference."
I can't know what my life would have looked like had I kept that bed and coffee table.
I can't imagine all the experiences I would have missed had I allowed the complications of that road trip to keep me from taking it.
And I can't know what will come from finally pursuing my dream of writing a book.
But I do know this.
I don't want the discomfort of the unknown to become the reason I miss out on experiencing my own life.
Because the extraordinary isn't always waiting for us at the end of the journey.
Sometimes it's unfolding in the very moments we're tempted to escape.
And perhaps learning to sit in the uncomfortable is one of the most meaningful ways we can learn to be present for all of it.
ReinvenHER Reflection
Think about an experience you've wanted to pursue but have hesitated because of the uncertainty or discomfort involved.
What is it about that discomfort that makes you want to retreat?
And perhaps more importantly:
What might you be missing if you allow that discomfort to determine the boundaries of your life?
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