Why Would I Ever Take a Cold Shower?

I see a lot of worries on my social media feed that Gen Z (but let’s be real, everyone with a phone) has lost the ability to be bored. We’re always doing things “nowadays”, scrolling, posting, and consuming content. Perhaps in retaliation to that, there's a trend of people going entire flights with nothing to stimulate them, and I’ve been watching (and chuckling at) this idea of tackling boredom without headphones. 

I wonder, however, if it’s the inability to be bored, or if it’s the inability to be uncomfortable. I wonder if people were bored 50 years ago, before the invention of the internet, or if they were also filling their time with things that were also villainized. We experience plenty of moral panic—I don’t know if it’s boredom that we have to be concerned about. I think it’s the desire to be comfortable that is a much more alluring vice. 

I recently hiked the Salkantay trek to Machu Picchu in Peru. The time in which you can do it varies wildly, but my best friend and I chose to do it in four days and three nights. It involves lots of steep climbs, beautiful views, and wildly varying temperatures that challenge your ability to pack everything into a 22L backpack (which is the size I recommend if you’re doing it, but that’s another blog post). At one part of the hike, after coming out of a particularly humid rainforest, you're allowed to pay for a hot shower for 10 soles or to take a cold shower for free. 10 soles isn’t much in Canadian dollars, but I decided to opt for the free experience, thinking it couldn't be that bad. 

The cold shower is beyond your most horrific imagination of a shower. Through a small field of clucking chickens and their excrement, down a small set of wobbling stairs, rests a concrete building shedding its white paint. Inside, an outhouse and a cement-floored shower share the same four-foot room. The shower isn’t draining, so there’s an inch or two of freezing mystery water tickling your feet. From the wall protrudes a tetanus-looking pipe which pours from its nightmarish mouth freezing cold water, perhaps warmed a fraction of a degree by the sun. There is no light in the shack, so not only are you standing in freezing cold water…you’re washing yourself with a glacier completely blind. 

I wondered to myself, illuminated only by the slightly ajar door, why I’d chosen this for myself. I had 10 soles. I could see from the ajar door the lineup of many of my peers who had paid for the hot shower to save themselves the very experience I was suffering through. Why had I chosen to be uncomfortable when there was something objectively better just meters away? No one had told me to—no one had pressured me. I’d picked it all for myself. 

After I’d finished and returned myself to the lawn to bask in the sun, no towel in sight, I stared into the majesty of the Peruvian Andes. We were at a part of the hike that placed us finally below cloud cover again, well within a jungle. Though familiar green grass poked into my bare legs, around me was nothing for miles but rainforest—thick, dense trees hid almost all of the mountains. Occasionally, a power line would stick out of the green, completely shattering any vision I could have had of this place being untouched by civilization. 

In front of me, a bag of stuff that I had packed in Canada stared at me. Around me, fellow hikers checked their phones. I thought about the electrical wires, bringing Wi-Fi to an area that was so remote I’d be able to see stars once the sun set. I thought about the plumbing that brought hot water to the remote, hidden Andes. 

And I thought to myself: I spent so much of my life being entirely comfortable. Putting on a sweater when I was cold. Heading inside when I got too hot. Adjusting the thermostat when I couldn’t sleep. Turning the shower up, just a little bit, so I could scald myself. 

I was so comfortable with being comfortable. I was so used to being exactly where I’d wanted to be. I’d wanted, for a few moments, to remind myself that life is often about being uncomfortable. 

How often in my day-to-day life in Canada do I get the privilege to build my tolerance for the cold, the wet and the slimy? How often do I have a chance at being able to handle uncomfortability in my day-to-day life? 

Maybe being able to take that cold shower will teach me that I can handle anything I put my mind to; it means I can push myself a little harder in that 10K, ask a little more of myself the next time I’m tasked with a new job, not shrink away when there’s confrontation on my doorstep. Maybe I'll apply for that job I think I'd be a great fit for.

Maybe it means I’ll be able to push myself out of my comfort zone the next time I want something. Because if I can handle being cold and wet in the pitch black, listening to the clucking of chickens just meters away…I can handle anything.

Uncomfortability is good for me. It makes me challenge what I previously thought was true about myself. And isn’t that what life's all about? Taking risks?

I’m not recommending that everyone reading this should go take a cold shower without a towel. What I’m recommending is making yourself uncomfortable in whatever way that looks like for you on purpose. You might be surprised by the outcome—you might feel more powerful than ever before. I think I’ll get the life I want by the growth that happens in the freezing cold, pitch-black shacks of life.