The Comfort Conundrum

The Comfort Conundrum, by Michael Easter

In modern life, welcoming discomfort makes us healthier and happier.

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Embracing Discomfort

Welcome adversity into your life as a path to better physical and mental well-being.

In Embracing Discomfort, journalist and professor Michael Easter challenges us to let go of certain modern comforts and incorporate a healthy amount of adversity into our “progressively sheltered, sterile, temperature-controlled, overfed, under-challenged lives.”

“We often have to go through short-term discomfort to get long-term benefits,” Michael says—and doing so, according to the research, can help us make profoundly “positive shifts in our health, perspective, and well-being.”

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Michael Easter is the author of two books—The Comfort Crisis, a bestseller, and the recently released Scarcity Brain—and a professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. His work has been translated into 40 languages. He lives in Las Vegas on the edge of the desert with his wife and two dogs.

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Author: Richard L. Fricks

Writer, observer, and student of presence. After decades as a CPA, attorney, and believer in inherited purpose, I now live a quieter life built around clarity, simplicity, and the freedom to begin again. I write both nonfiction and fiction: The Pencil-Driven Life, a memoir and daily practice of awareness, and the Boaz, Alabama novels—character-driven stories rooted in the complexities of ordinary life. I live on seventy acres we call Oak Hollow, where my wife and I care for seven rescued dogs and build small, intentional spaces that reflect the same philosophy I write about. Oak Hollow Cabins is in the development stage (opening March 1, 2026), and is—now and always—a lived expression of presence: cabins, trails, and quiet places shaped by the land itself. My background as a Fictionary Certified StoryCoach Editor still informs how I understand story, though I no longer offer coaching. Instead, I share reflections through The Pencil’s Edge and @thepencildrivenlife, exploring what it means to live lightly, honestly, and without a script. Whether I’m writing, building, or walking the land, my work is rooted in one simple truth: Life becomes clearer when we stop trying to control the story and start paying attention to the moment we’re in.

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