Happiness and comfort.

I often wonder if they’re compatible. I wonder if you don’t have to choose between them. In a way, they may be opposites. Happiness, it seems to me, is a state of arousal, of excitement, of positive energy. That’s not comfort. It’s too dynamic to be comfortable. Comfort is not challenging, not really engaging either. Comfort has an element of inertia to it. Saying I’ll sit down and watch TV rather than exercise may make you comfortable, but will it make you happy?
Exercise gives you energy, relieves stress, prolongs your life. Watching your favourite TV program, then getting up and doing something else doesn’t seem incompatible with happiness. But slouching in front of the tube for hours sure doesn’t seem compatible with happiness either. And I suspect that often, when people say doing such-and-such makes me happy, what they really mean is it makes me comfortable.
So, there is a danger here. The danger of settling for comfort, because happiness is just too risky, or maybe it’s just too much work.
I see this happening in relationships quite often. When people describe themselves as being happy in their relationships, I’ll ask them to tell me about that, describe what lets them know they are happy. More often than not, what they’ll describe is being comfortable.
As I’ve said before, relationships are work. Our stories and folk wisdom are full of cautionary tales against getting too comfortable. That leads to taking each other for granted, which can sap all the vitality out of a relationship. It’s work to keep your partner’s interest alive, to keep a touch of the unexpected in the relationship after decades together. And it is not without risk. People have been known to fight tooth and claw, resorting to ridicule and contempt when their comfortable cage gets rattled. So, you need to decide whether taking a chance on being happy is worth that risk.
For myself, I’d rather look back from old age on a life filled with risks and a mix of sad and happy memories, than a lifetime of comfortable “same-old.”
But maybe that’s just me.