Deconstructing Discomfort
How doing hard things allowed this trans artist’s life to bloom.
The years following university graduation can be some of the hardest. They are riddled with uncertainty and infected by comparison. Society dictates that these years are for laying the groundwork: get everything right, and you’re set for life.
The more twenty-somethings I talk to, the more I realize that most of us have resigned ourselves to a life at a desk. We watch seasons pass by office windows (if fortunate enough to have one) – it’s suddenly New Year’s again. We meticulously count steps to ensure our bodies don’t surrender to stagnation. We wait for someone behind a screen to approve our rest time.
We have accepted this sacrifice as part of adulthood. Money, stability, safety oftentimes take precedence over joy and freedom. It’s an active choice we’re making, a struggle that we choose, according to my friend Dante.
Dante Alam is a painter and florist in Ottawa, something he has only recently been doing full-time. Originally from Malaysia, Dante immigrated for university. We met in a creative book arts class at Carleton University. Back then, we were full of hope. Academia instilled in us a confidence that we would achieve our dream careers.
In the months following graduation, Dante started working as an administrator at an engineering consulting firm. Although not the career English majors yearn for, it was a blessing. As an immigrant, he had an obligation to land a salaried position with benefits as soon as possible, dream job or not. Shortly after, Dante was promoted, granting him with benefits, stability, and decent salary for a new grad – aka everything one needs to fulfill society’s idea of success.
Dante now found himself with the cushy job and an apartment in a luxury building, but something was off. He admitted to crying on the bus home most days, missing sunshine, and struggling with the monotony of the 9-5 work structure.
“The job itself was very stressful and not at all something I imagined myself doing… You know as a kid you’re like ‘I’m going to be an astronaut, I’m going to be a doctor.’ You don’t think I'm going to write proposals and responses to RFPs for an engineering company.”
On top of a declining mental state due to the nature of the job, guilt began to creep into Dante’s psyche. He looked to his fellow international students, others who graduated with equal prospects but didn’t have his luck, and felt bad for wondering “What if there could be more?”
“It feels sinful to even consider ‘What if I could be more than just this?’ when most people in my position would be like ‘Oh, you’ve achieved it. This is the dream. Be happy.’”
About a year into the job, lost immigration paperwork, an expired passport, and an HR department unwilling to see reason left him in employment limbo. For months, Dante was in contact with the government and his company’s HR department all while struggling with turmoil in his personal life:
“I was fighting with HR to get back this job that I actually didn’t really want to do, and I was crying and having such a bad time, and at the same time I was struggling with all of this, I was in this abusive relationship. I had been with her for five years at this point and things were reaching a boiling point [and] we were going to couples counseling. I bring it up because it feels like the same situation. I was fighting so hard to try to hold onto something that wasn’t for me.”
Eventually, the company realized that Dante was legally employable. His job was saved, but his long-term relationship was not. Realizing that this relationship no longer served him was the first major epiphany, or as he so aptly described it, “a breath of relief” that led Dante on a journey to reclaim his own life.
“She played this big part in my life for five years, so I [didn’t] know if I [could] let it go, aside from all the emotional manipulation and trying to get me to stay. But it was the same situation where I chose stability over my Truth. Even in the relationship, I pushed aside my transition for her because she was uncomfortable with the idea. I convinced myself it didn't matter, gender isn’t real anyways, but that wasn’t entirely the truth – it did matter to me. So, once again, just pushing away things that would’ve made me so much happier. I was just sad all the time. I thought, ‘I guess it must be me.’”
Dante had grown accustomed to choosing stability over truth, all in the name of avoiding discomfort. Many of us are fooled by this very fallacy: comfort equates to happiness. In his own words, “You start to compromise [on] your dreams [...] I was compromising [on] my dreams because that is what I’m supposed to do as an adult.” So, he quit.
Quitting was not a spontaneous decision, but in fact the product of being pushed into a project with no supervision for a notoriously difficult client. The project “blew up in [his] face.” After asking about the safety of his employment due to mishandling the project, Dante was met with an “I don’t know” from his manager. The ambiguous reply assured him one thing: he was not going to let the universe control this outcome, he would be the one to control it.
“I left this relationship that was making me so unhappy – why can’t I do this with this job and just take a risk on myself? I always wanted to run a business, to be my own boss, I’ve always wanted to do something more creative. I thought, ‘I could do this.’ I [...] gave my two weeks notice and I cried about it for a long while. I talked to my parents and my dad said it was a good idea. It really helped having people around me that supported my ambitions and believed in me more than I believed in myself. My parents, my friends, everyone was like ‘you’re confident, you’re capable’ and after coming out of a relationship that made me feel anything but, coming out of a job that made me feel anything but…”
With a newfound freedom, on two accounts, Dante had to make a game plan. He didn’t have the luxury of a safety-net to fall back on. As an openly queer person, returning home to his family in Malaysia (a country that “outlaws same-sex relations and criminalizes forms of gender expression”¹) was out of the question. He began to reflect on previous jobs that brought him joy, and one prevailed over the others.
“As a teenager, I was a florist for a couple months as a part-time gig. I had finished high school and was trying to decide what I wanted to do with my life. Do I want to go to college? What are my goals? So, I took some time and worked at a florist company, delivering flowers online…I’ve had so many different jobs over the course of these years and I still think that’s the happiest I’ve been doing work (aside from when I’m running my own business right now). And I was being paid like nothing, 8 Ringgit an hour, which was less than 3 Canadian dollars an hour, but I was so happy it didn’t matter. I just liked being there and working with my hands. I thought about it. I could make flowers every day for the rest of my life and I could be very content.”
Thus Ares Flowers was born. The discordant name was born out of Dante’s interest in Greek mythology and paradoxes: “Flowers are very feminine and associated with softness, and Ares is the Greek god of war. That sounds fucking sick.” Ares Flowers specializes in dried floral arrangements and boutonnieres inspired by pride flags. Customers can order off of the Ares Flowers’ website or find Dante at local markets across Ottawa.
Dante standing behind a table of flowers and crafts. The table has a banner that reads Ares Flowers.
As an incredibly risk-averse person, I was astounded by Dante’s bravery. He left a long-term relationship, quit a stable job, and started a business all in the span of about a year. He attributed his will to this mantra: “Who the fuck is going to stop me? Me?” There was no one but himself stopping him from going after his dreams. It all started with the first step.
“The minute I started making these decisions, the next one became easier, and the next one became easier. Lo and behold, they actually weren’t that risky and they weren’t that bad.”
I wondered if all of these big life changes informed his transition in any way, to which he enthusiastically confirmed:
“I don’t think I would’ve been able to clock that I was trans if I hadn’t quit my job and become a florist, if I hadn’t left that relationship, if I hadn’t moved to Canada. All these big decisions made me more comfortable with changing my life.”
Through all of the hardship Dante has endured, he does not regret anything, but he makes it clear that none of this was easy, or comfortable, or safe, and that was the point.
“I’m thinking back to two years ago, I was knee-deep in hell. I was so scared of so many things. Anxiety was through the roof. Therapy has helped a lot, but one thing that would’ve helped, if I could tell myself, is the one thing that you’re scared of is discomfort, and discomfort isn’t that bad. Discomfort hurts you less than what you’re experiencing right now. Change doesn't mean pain, it just means different, it just means uncomfortable. I think people tend to think of discomfort with a generally negative connotation. Deconstruct your notion of discomfort. I wouldn’t say discomfort all the time is a good thing, but it's not a bad thing, it’s just a tool.”
As for signs from above, or a moment when it all clicked, there wasn’t one.
“We are all waiting for a moment when something clicks or something feels comfortable enough. ‘This is a sign that I’m going to do it.’ But that moment never actually comes. Sometimes you have glimpses of it, or inklings, but there’s never going to be a day when you feel ready enough…and I’m not ready now and I’m doing it. I’m still struggling in so many ways, there are hard times now but there were hard times when I was doing the shit I was doing before.”
Persevering through discomfort and struggle has been a dominant feature in Dante’s life. During our conversation, he introduced me to the idea that we choose our own suffering. I was hesitant to the concept at first, but after our conversation and a small research session, I now see how it could be a lifeline to some.
Variations of this doctrine include stress inoculation and Stoicism (to a more extreme degree), but Dante has adopted a belief more similar to that of Viktor Frankl – Austrian psychiatrist, Holocaust survivor, and author of Man’s Search for Meaning. The idea Dante subscribes to is that suffering is unavoidable.
“You will suffer. That’s the most freeing thing to me. No matter what happens, I will be in pain…I’m always suffering. And I know that’s not the case for a lot of people. People have their ups and downs. And I do have several mental health diagnoses that influence my perception, my emotions, but the minute I started accepting that life will always be at least a little bit painful, suddenly it became less painful.”
Hardships make us feel helpless. Helplessness leads to hopelessness. Hopelessness leads to complacency, trapping us in misery. Through recognizing the agency we possess in controlling our own suffering (whether it be attitude towards a situation or the situation itself), we take control.
Dante does recognize that even this practice is a privilege that many cannot afford, literally. Leaving a toxic relationship or quitting a terrible job is out of the question for many purely because of their dependency on that thing. Instead of complete resignation, however, he recommends starting small.
“The less you do it, the less you do it. The more you do it, the more you do it. So the more you choose your suffering, the more capable you are of choosing your suffering. The more passively you engage with it and your life isn’t your life. It’s a practice. It’s a muscle. And don’t just do it for the sake of doing it, but maybe just start with small stuff.”
Dante also disclosed that this mentality is not the secret to unlocking true happiness or the cure for depression.
“The breakup was so hard on me. I was stuck…And it was suffering, but I’m choosing this over the long, drawn-out abuse. And with the transition, it’s so uncomfortable. I have to tell people. Who will accept me? Who won’t? Puberty again. Then, I really can’t go home. But that suffering I chose over the suffering of not knowing myself, of not feeling comfortable looking in the mirror. And I’m still suffering. I didn’t feel less pain, I just started to feel more joy alongside the pain because I just chose a suffering that gave me meaning.”
So to anyone stuck in their own lives, wishing for better but apprehensive to discover what better may be, I’ll leave you with this: “If suffering is guaranteed, make it be guaranteed for something that counts.”
Colourful painting of a face and hand emerging through stylized water and fish. Painted by Dante Alam.
Colourful painting of different types of fish and sea creatures. Painted by Dante Alam.