Embrace the Uncomfortable 

Have you ever had a moment that, at the time, feels insignificant? I didn’t know it then, but one afternoon, a flyer changed everything. I was just a kid, lost in music, living life track by track. I wasn’t an athlete, hell, I wasn’t even active. Then, one day, a flyer caught my eye: Kung Fu lessons. No big deal, right? Just a piece of paper. But something inside whispered, “Go.” So I did. No expectations. Nothing more than pure curiosity.

That moment was the beginning of everything. It was more than just Kung Fu, more than a place, it was a path I never saw coming, but I’m thankful it found me. Three years of training, and it didn’t just teach me discipline. It changed me. I found strength in places I didn’t even know existed. But something deeper was stirring, something bigger. I felt the pull to China, to Shaolin, to the raw truth of it all. I spent three years preparing, learning Mandarin, saving every penny, and then I leaped, trusting that whatever came next would be worth it.

Arriving in China was like stepping into another world. Cold that burned, literally. A place where the air was sharp and pain was a constant companion. Training in minus thirty degree weather? Not for the faint of heart. My fingers froze and cracked within the first week, they bled for months. But I stayed. I almost didn’t, but I did. Why? Because, deep down, I knew this was bigger than discomfort. Bigger than pain. It was about transformation.

One night, my roommate said something that stopped me cold because I was looking for flights back home: “Stay past two weeks, and you’ll never leave. The pain fades (it did not), and this place will become your home (it did).” Those words stuck. I stayed. And over the next seven months, that frozen temple became my world. Pain never faded but peace seeped in, a peace I had never known.

This wasn’t about Kung Fu anymore. It was about life. Simple, quiet, raw. Train, eat, sleep. Repeat. No distractions. In that stillness, I learned what it meant to be fully alive. I unlearned the habit of rushing. I stopped living in the future. I began to live in the now. Have you ever realized how often we miss the moment, trying to get somewhere else? Do we really need to be anywhere but here?

Pain, too, taught me more than I could’ve imagined. Pain isn’t something to get through. It’s an invitation. It’s a choice. Pain asks, “Will you stop here, or will you keep going?” You choose. You decide. It’s your mind that tells your body to stop, to quit, to break. But the mind, when it’s trained, can push you farther than you ever thought possible. Pain, in all its brutal honesty, teaches you how to endure, how to grow, how to really feel what it means to be alive. Ever wonder what it feels like to push yourself until everything hurts and realize you’re still standing? That’s power.

And in the quiet of that temple, I learned something else about people. Solitude reshaped everything. Happiness isn’t something to keep to yourself. It’s meant to be shared. How often do we hold on to our victories, our joys, thinking they’re ours alone? Do you ever feel the truth of connection? The kind that’s built in silence, in struggle, in the shared experience of living through something together?

Now I wonder: What would my life be if I’d never seen that flyer? If I had walked by? But the thing is, those moments, those seemingly insignificant choices, are where everything begins. What if we stopped looking for the perfect moment, and instead leaned into the uncertainty? What if we leaned into the discomfort, the pain, and let it change us?

We all have a choice. Every day, we walk by moments that could alter the course of our lives. Will we lean in, or will we keep walking? Will we allow the pain to teach us, to make us stronger?

The questions don’t have answers, but they’re worth asking. Don’t you think?