A short Heroic +1 podcast episode (Brian Johnson) summarizing Michael Easter's book The Comfort Crisis and reflecting on how modern comfort may harm physical and mental health. The episode highlights an astonishing calculation—that a person's odds of being alive are 1 in 10^2,685,000—compares historical childhood mortality and life expectancy (circa 1900 average life expectancy ~31; global average now ~72), and urges listeners to embrace discomfort and live purposefully.
Questions this episode answers
1 in 10^2,685,000
31 years
72 years
About 30–40%
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Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another heroic plus one. Michael Easter is an award winning journalist, a contributing editor at Men's Health magazine, columnist for Outside magazine, and professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. He wrote a book called the Comfort Crisis. It's fantastic. He tells us, as you might have guessed from the title of his book, that we're facing a comfort crisis. If you haven't noticed, in many ways we're more comfortable than ever before. But Michael asks, could our sheltered, temperature controlled, overfed under challenged lives actually be the leading cause of many of our physical and mental health issues? Spoiler alert. The answer is an unequivocal yes. Check out the notes for some ideas on how to embrace discomfort to as per the subtitle of the book, reclaim your wild, happy, healthy self. Today I want to chat about one idea from his book that made my head explode. Have you ever thought about the odds of you being alive? Get this, he tells us, and I quote, one scientist calculated the numbers and found that a person's odds of being alive are 1 in 10 to the power of 2,685,000. The scientist explains that these odds are the same as having a group of 2 million people each roll a trillion sided die, and every roll landing on the same number. Like 550,343,279,007 are the odds of that happening. One in that long number. I got goosebumps typing that as my mind exploded yet again. Then he tells us, and I quote Michael Easter once more, this figure also doesn't factor in my luck of being born in a developed country in a recent time. Even about a century ago, for example, between 30 and 40% of European children died before turning five. That's why in 1900, the average life expectancy in the world was 31. Now the world's average life expectancy is 72. That is today's one. Our lives are a miracle. Let's remember to take them as granted rather than for granted. Check out that +1. And as we contemplate the unfathomable odds of us even being alive, I ask yet again, what is it you plan to do with this one wild and miraculously precious life of yours? Hero? Seriously, get clear on who you are at your best and give us all you've got today. Pretty please thank you. Let's go. By the way, again, as I recently said, you want to make 2023 the greatest year of your life? Join us in Heroic Coach Class 14. We guarantee you that if you show up and do the work, we'll fundamentally and permanently change your life. Learn more at Heroic Us Coach. Let's go.
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