A Stoic practice
What is Stoic voluntary discomfort?
Voluntary discomfort is the Stoic practice of deliberately going without something — warmth, comfort, a meal, a convenience — while nothing is actually wrong. You learn by direct evidence that you can bear it. Fear of losing a thing shrinks once you have already lived a day without it.
Where it comes from
The discipline runs throughout Roman Stoic practice, and Seneca recommends periods of deliberate hardship in order to ask, in advance and on your own terms, whether this is really what you feared. Epictetus, whose training was not voluntary, makes the same point about what it produces: it was for this that I kept training, it was to meet this that I used to practise.
How to do it
- 01Pick something small and real: the cold end of the shower, the walk instead of the ride, the meal skipped.
- 02Do it while things are fine. The practice does not work as a response to trouble; it works as preparation for it.
- 03Pay attention to the finding: it was unpleasant and you were fine. Both halves matter.
- 04Stop. This is a rehearsal, not a lifestyle, and there are no points for grimness.
How it goes wrong
Turning it into asceticism or self-punishment. The Stoics were not against comfort; they were against being owned by it. If the discomfort has become an identity, the practice has inverted.
The idea behind it
Memento mori is Latin for “remember you will die”: the Stoic practice of keeping your own death in view so that you actually live the time you have. It is not morbid. It shrinks the trivial back to its real size and ends the postponement of the life you mean to start.
What does memento mori mean?The book on it: The Time You Have