An Uncomfortable Truth

This interview of Disney heiress Abigail Disney was so interesting on so many levels.  I was particularly taken by her point about the corrosive effect of having access to a private jet, because I've made a similar point about the difference between riding public transit and driving a car.  You might consider these vastly different situations, but I don't: one separates you in your own bubble from the rest of humanity, and the other puts you squarely in the midst of humanity.  Here's how Ms. Disney puts it:

Actually, having a jet is a really big deal. If I were queen of the world, I would pass a law against private jets, because they enable you to get around a certain reality. You don’t have to go through an airport terminal, you don’t have to interact, you don’t have to be patient, you don’t have to be uncomfortable. These are the things that remind us we’re human.

You can see why I would resonate with such a sentiment, since I have written at length about how comfort can kill our soul, while discomfort is part of the necessary refining process we all must go through.  And this applies even and especially to the mundane things in life, like how we get around.  For those of us of a certain means, we have the option of making our lives a lot easier, and we usually exercise that option, whether it is where we live or how we shop or what goes into our vacation plans. 

Every decision to either avoid or lean into pain isn't necessarily life or death.  But Ms. Disney is right, albeit that her specific example of a private jet is one most of us will never come close to.  In life, we make big and small decisions, and I do believe that the sum of them get us to either life or death.  Let's choose carefully.