Can doing tough things make life even sweeter?

"I just don't think at this age I'm meant to live an uncomfortable life."

When Parker Posey's Victoria Ratliff delivered those now-iconic words with her southern drawl in the latest season of The White Lotus, they struck a chord for many viewers. Including me.

Truth be told, I live a pretty damn comfortable life. My home stays perfectly climate-controlled thanks to a sleek digital interface in my bedroom. Groceries, films, songs, information, and almost any product I can imagine arrive at my door with a few laptop clicks. My smartphone contains more computing power than NASA had when it landed astronauts on the moon. Life is undeniably good.

Yet despite all the perks of living in this time and place, I've had a growing realisation I can't shake:

Life has become too easy.

Before you swipe away in righteous indignation, let me explain. I know very well, with deep personal witnessing, that while life might be easy for me, it's brutally hard for others enduring war, famine, poverty, or discrimination. Closer to home, I know grocery bills and fuel costs have never been higher. I know interest rates have been punishing those of us with mortgages. But despite all that, if you're reading this, chances are you also live with considerable ease.

I'm 41 years old. Looking back on my teenage years and twenties, life wasn’t always easy. I regularly found myself in situations where things got difficult—where I was cold or exhausted, where I didn't always play it safe, where I needed determination, quick thinking, or something deeper just to get through. But throughout my thirties, things gradually shifted. I encountered that kind of hardship less and less. As I raised my children, climbed the corporate ladder at work, and began enjoying airline lounges, higher-floor hotel rooms, and expensed dinners, the seductive allure of the good life took hold.

I brought up this nagging feeling with my old military buddy, Luke Baker, over lunch in San Francisco a few months ago. He told me to read Michael Easter's book The Comfort Crisis. After its instant delivery to my Kindle, I settled into the crisp white sheets of my hotel bed that night and read about how our existence has become progressively "sheltered, sterile, temperature-controlled, overfed, under-challenged, safety-netted." Easter argued this was limiting how fully we experience what poet Mary Oliver called our "one wild and precious life." He referenced Harvard professor David Levari's research on "prevalence induced concept change"—scientific backing for what we might dismiss as 'first world problems.' Essentially, as genuine hardships decrease, we humans still perceive challenges everywhere. They just become increasingly trivial.

The antidote?

Do hard things again.

Or if you prefer the trendy term: do a misogi.

Traditionally, misogi is a Japanese Shinto practice that involves immersion in freezing water, often beneath a waterfall. (And no, I'm not about to preach about ice baths.) Today, the term has evolved—some might say been culturally appropriated—to describe any deliberately chosen, significant challenge that pushes us beyond our perceived limits. A proper misogi should scare you a little, with a real chance of failure. Ideally, you shouldn't make a big production of it either—it's a private challenge, not Instagram content.

I completed a solo misogi last week.

I won't share the details—that's for me—but I was cold and exhausted for much of it. Success felt genuinely uncertain. In the days after returning home, my body ached as it recovered. I also felt proud of what I'd accomplished, and sensed my boys were proud of me too. That first hot shower, climbing into a warm bed, savouring a perfect cup of coffee—everything felt a little sweeter. The week's problems suddenly seemed manageable. I loved my misogi. You'll probably love yours too.

So, get out there. Get uncomfortable. And the next time you hear someone say, "I just don't think at this age I'm meant to live an uncomfortable life," just yell "Nooooo, Piper, nooooo!"

Your misogi awaits.