Inner Peace is comfortable.

It sounds nice, doesn't it? To be completely at peace with whatever happens in the world. To appreciate that you're alive, and you're at peace with whatever happens. The physical, hormonal feeling that being "at peace" has.

It never was quite sustainable though, was it? Whenever you've felt it, it was fleeting.

That's because your subconscious knew it was a lie. It knows that life is a struggle. It couldn't fit in your brief spouts of inner peace with the challenging world around you.

If you want inner peace, get your 2.5 kids and a white picket fence, live in your delusional bubble, and enjoy it.

The issue with inner peace is that it's comfortable. Why is that an issue? Well besides the obvious fact that it is a breeding ground for complacency, there's a deeper reason:

If you're improving yourself, you're inherently outside your comfort zone, and that is inherently uncomfortable.

If you're serious about being the best you can be, and increasing your power as much as you can, then you're going to be outside your comfort zone. Skills like learning to play an instrument might be easy to practice on your own, but what if you are serious about being your best, and competing amongst other musicians? If you're really pushing yourself, those situations are going to be uncomfortable. If you're pursuing an advanced degree, or standing in front of sharks and the American audience on Shark Tank, putting it all on the line with your idea, you're inherently outside your comfort zone, and are going to be uncomfortable.

If you think you're going to be "at peace" in those moments, then you're naïve and inexperienced and have clearly never been there.

If you've never challenged yourself or competed, you probably don't know what I'm talking about.

But if you're one of the men who have truly put themselves outside their comfort zone in order to be their best, and placed their skills up against other men, then you will find no inner peace there. Maybe inner peace afterwards, but that's just a temporary reprieve before you challenge yourself again, isn't it? You must find a joy in the struggle. You must revel in the discomfort of discipline, which is necessary to achieve any real worthy goal.

There is an inner peace that you can achieve like men, though. And that is the inner peace which comes from power. From accomplishments. Inner peace stemming from pride or power.

The inner peace that at any moment you can walk away from life with enough money. The inner peace coming from knowing you have the skills to perform well. Then, and only then, do you have the right to talk about inner peace.

Inner peace is comfortable. Self-improvement (if you're serious about it) is uncomfortable.

Inner peace must be earned.

As a practical matter, what you really want to do is to channel the natural uncomfortable emotions into productive endeavors. If you're nervous, reinterpret the accompanying sympathetic arousal response (fight or flight response) as excitement. You can't change the fact that emotions will naturally come to the surface. Dismiss some if you can, and others like anger or anxiety, channel and let it fuel you in some way.

For more information on that emotion technique in the face of high-pressure situations outside your comfort zone, see the book The Art of Learning by Josh Waitzkin. This was also touched on in Presence by Amy Cuddy briefly at the end.

Enjoy the struggle, because it shows us we're outside our comfort zone. And if you stay outside your comfort zone long enough and thrive, well then you've just earned some peace.