Comfort and appreciation
Dec. 29th, 2024 12:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rosewritesOne of the books I got at the library yesterday is The Comfort Crisis by Michael Easter. It outlines that a scientific study concluded that people determine what things are problems relative to other recent events in their lives, not relative to the entirety of their life and experiences. So if a person's life is going well and things are generally easy, they naturally lower their threshold for what they consider to be a problem, "creating" problems.
This got me thinking about how this concept may apply to a relationship. Does this tendency cause people to squabble over minute things because they have become so comfortable/ happy over the years? Is it harder to let small things go over time because everything else is going so well, and relatively, these small things now feel like problems since there are no big things to label as problems?
On the flip side, this highlights where one can really practice appreciation. Be mindful and grateful when things go well, and avoid falling into having a lowered threshold for what is considered a problem -- because you're comparing the incident to surrounding recent positive experiences.
The book outlined this concept to convey that the same concept applies to getting out of your comfort zone. "Comfort creep" is a thing where we adapt to a certain level of comfort, but we are always looking for more because we compare potential additional comfort to the current level of comfort, not to a broader baseline of being a human surviving on the earth. And then we end up way too comfortable and way too disconnected from what it means to be human and have adventures.
Only on page 52 but loving this book so far.
This got me thinking about how this concept may apply to a relationship. Does this tendency cause people to squabble over minute things because they have become so comfortable/ happy over the years? Is it harder to let small things go over time because everything else is going so well, and relatively, these small things now feel like problems since there are no big things to label as problems?
On the flip side, this highlights where one can really practice appreciation. Be mindful and grateful when things go well, and avoid falling into having a lowered threshold for what is considered a problem -- because you're comparing the incident to surrounding recent positive experiences.
The book outlined this concept to convey that the same concept applies to getting out of your comfort zone. "Comfort creep" is a thing where we adapt to a certain level of comfort, but we are always looking for more because we compare potential additional comfort to the current level of comfort, not to a broader baseline of being a human surviving on the earth. And then we end up way too comfortable and way too disconnected from what it means to be human and have adventures.
Only on page 52 but loving this book so far.
