An Essay on Being Uncomfortable

An essay on why being uncomfortable is good for building character

I live in the Northeastern part of the United States. We have Winter Nor’easters, ‘muggy’ Summers, but awesome Spring and Autumn weather. The weather changes a lot but I love the change of seasons. I like Spring and Autumn the best. Winter is ok, I get sad because of the low amount of daylight, and I swelter in Summer.

I’m uncomfortable.

Swelter, melt, cook. It’s not because I’m always feeling hot but because we have no working air conditioning in the house. Our AC broke a year ago. We looked into getting it fixed but found out that the compressor units had leaks and needed freon to work. Unfortunately for us, freon is no longer available so we’d need to switch out both compressors. That means the air handlers in the attic need replacement too. All this comes with a hefty price tag to replace so we ‘sucked it up’ and dealt with sweltering sleeping nights.

Being uncomfortable is to be human.

Sleeping in the middle of the heatwave is terrible, uncomfortable at best. I toss and turn and sleep in my underwear. I move from my upstairs bedroom to the downstairs couch where the fan is on and continue to toss and turn all night. Morning comes fast and…