{"id":1219,"date":"2024-01-18T18:11:31","date_gmt":"2024-01-18T14:11:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sureshdinakaran.com\/blog\/?p=1219"},"modified":"2024-01-18T18:11:31","modified_gmt":"2024-01-18T14:11:31","slug":"looking-for-a-proxy-for-progress-seek-discomfort","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sureshdinakaran.com\/blog\/2024\/01\/18\/looking-for-a-proxy-for-progress-seek-discomfort\/","title":{"rendered":"Looking for a Proxy for Progress: Seek Discomfort !"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Some years ago I was fortunate to be invited to make a presentation at a rather large conference. Though I had done presentations earlier, it was to very small audiences and was never to an audience of more than 500 and an aware, agile, adept one at that. And I was also conscious of &#8221; <em><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">Death By PowerPoint<\/span> <\/em>&#8220;.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Irrespective of preparation, research and rehearsing, I was a nervous wreck. The slot allotted to me was just after the lunch break(usually tagged the &#8216;<span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><em>Death Hour<\/em><\/span>&#8216; at conferences as lunch and carbohydrates have their say to lull the audience into sombre stupor). Getting audience attention is a task at the best of times. Sweaty palms, and palpitation were my best allies. I wasn&#8217;t sure if I was making my <span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><em>discomfort<\/em><\/span> conspicuous but I had so many things in mind, I wouldn&#8217;t have even known.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>I got onto the stage and the heaviness in my chest began to offload little by little. An encouraging audience offered me nods and smiles. I began to move away from my <span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><em>Republic of Discomfort<\/em><\/span> to finding my feet. At the end of it, it didn&#8217;t go as bad as I envisaged. And the learning from <span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><em>not<\/em> <\/span>being in your comfort zone was priceless.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>We spend a lot of years trying to outrun or outsmart vulnerability by making things certain and definite, black and white, good and bad. Our whole life is set up in the <span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><em>path of least resistance<\/em><\/span>. We don&#8217;t want to suffer. We don&#8217;t want to feel <span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><em>discomfort<\/em><\/span>. Time to counter that.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>When you feel <span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><em>discomfort<\/em><\/span> don&#8217;t default to the thinking that something is <em><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">wrong<\/span><\/em> with you. On the contrary, it is the other way. Something is<span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><em> right<\/em> <\/span>with you. Your body is sending out a signal of readiness, agility, preparation and wanting to take that <span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><em>leap of faith<\/em><\/span>. It is sending you a signal to break away the shackles and embrace the unknown or the fear as it may. So that you can emerge in your new, superior form.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>No need to restrain, run away or disassociate from <span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><em>discomfort<\/em><\/span>. It is not an enemy but an ally, a guide, a navigator. It is that signal emerging from the wisest parts of your being urging you to explore, grow, move, transform. It is the GPS that travels with you to a future you would have never imagined.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1220\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sureshdinakaran.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/Being-An-Employee-Of-Our-Own-Myth-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"2000\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Without the\u00a0<em>mistakes<\/em>\u00a0<em>we make<\/em>, the\u00a0<em>decisions<\/em>\u00a0<em>we regret<\/em>\u00a0and the\u00a0<em>experiences<\/em>\u00a0<em>that didn\u2019t live up to our expectations,\u00a0<\/em>we would be very short on material for our\u00a0<em>creative work<\/em>.\u00a0 These things are all just\u00a0<em>ingredients for your soup<\/em>,\u00a0<em>material for making meaning\u00a0<\/em>and<em>\u00a0making art<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Ready?<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>ENDS<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; Some years ago I was fortunate to be invited to make a presentation at a rather large conference. Though I had done presentations earlier, it was to very small audiences and was never to an audience of more than 500 and an aware, agile, adept one at that. And I was also conscious of &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sureshdinakaran.com\/blog\/2024\/01\/18\/looking-for-a-proxy-for-progress-seek-discomfort\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Looking for a Proxy for Progress: Seek Discomfort !&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1219","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sureshdinakaran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1219","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sureshdinakaran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sureshdinakaran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sureshdinakaran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sureshdinakaran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1219"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.sureshdinakaran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1219\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1221,"href":"https:\/\/www.sureshdinakaran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1219\/revisions\/1221"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sureshdinakaran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sureshdinakaran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sureshdinakaran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}