If we look at humans in their natural state (tribes that still exist) we’ll see they spend a lot of their time stress-free milling about the village, doing daily chores like gathering water, they hunt, fish or collect foods when they need to and work on odd projects like sharpening spears or fixing their huts and all of this is built into their daily lives. There seems to be no planning for it, it just is because it needs to be.

You inspired me to walk up the 22 stories to my former office before my WFH days, on top of biking 12 miles round trip. And there’s America’s weakness in a nutshell, and meanwhile our strength comes entirely from the times we choose not to waste our time stooping to this level. You must think of mitakpa three times each day. Once in the morning, once in the afternoon, and once in the evening. You must be curious about your death. You must understand that you don’t know how you will die or where you will die. Just that you will die. And that death can come at any time,” he said. “The ancient monks would remind themselves of this every time they left their meditation cave. I, too, remind myself of this every time I walk out my front door.”For example, consider the importance of handwashing. Even before COVID-19, most of us were regular, if not obsessive, hand washers. Hygiene equals health – or at least, that’s what we think. It strikes me that as you move further away from needing to worry about money that your posts become more focused on well-being and finding joy and peace in life, almost like you are moving higher and higher to the tip-top of the needs triangle. I love to see that for you. For those of us that are still working and growing our MMs, I would love to see a post from you on how you are thinking about the current economic outlook and whether you are pivoting things around in your portfolio. If I sat down to lunch with you, that would be a question I would ask. Also curious: do you still manage your own portfolio or use at FA? I’m getting to the point where I’m thinking about it. I don’t know if I want all the responsibility of protecting what I’ve saved so far. Thanks! Reply

That’s the main revelation of journalist Michael Easter’s The Comfort Crisis, a book about embracing discomfort to “reclaim your wild, happy, healthy self.” Our lives are undeniably easier now, but comfort doesn’t equal happiness. In fact, it seems that many people are more stressed and depressed than ever. The physical struggles of survival have been replaced by mental challenges, like rising levels of anxiety and occupational burnout. Efforts to numb ourselves with food, alcohol, and screens just increase our sense of dissatisfaction. It helps when you have like-minded people in your circle of friends. I do have three friends who embrace life with less comfort but with a lot of passion and realness. Unfortunately two of them live abroad and I don’t get to be around them as much as I would like to learn from each other and bounce off ideas etc. A lot of people I know (and like) are what we in my native language endearingly (using a diminutive) call: “little luxury horses” (translation from the Dutch word: “luxe-paardje”). It is fine, but it’s not that for-filling a life as the lovely suffering I like to do with the aforementioned like-minded friends.This reads like David Goggins propaganda, or like it was written by someone who'd seriously consider electing Joe Rogan for president. I agree with the basic premise, ie, that we ought to get outside more and push past our overly-cushioned modern, Western lives. Yet, I think Easter takes this too far. I will say that I enjoyed his discussion with the food guy, but that was pretty much the only part I liked. Did you know in advance this WSJ article was about to be published when you wrote this? It seems we’ve raised an entire generation of young workers that want no stress (anxiety) or challenges at all in their work or personal lives. So why am I rating 2 stars? Something that irritates me with these types of journalistic books is that the author spends so much time describing their own journey into the research - which I could NOT care less about and it takes up most of the book content. I couldn’t have been less interested in this guys conversations with random people or arctic adventure (arctic adventure sounds interesting but his wasn’t at all. It was basically him walking around with a bunch of old dudes and occasionally hunting). I really just want to hear about the research and facts. I also didn’t really like how he described calorie counting as the best way to lose weight. Is that a wrong opinion? No - I just didn’t think it fit into the purpose and content of the rest of the book which is about being uncomfortable. He went into the nutritional density of food and all of this other information that didn’t pertain to his thesis. Allowing yourself to be hungry is one thing, but then to say calorie counting is the best way to eat? Doesn’t really correlate to me.