I was drawn in by the title of this book. I've been working on not just tolerating discomfort in my own life but accepting and allowing it as well. I had assumed this book would provide practical tips for handling discomfort in everyday situations. Instead, Long spends chapter after chapter profiling people who have gone through extreme discomfort: from a woman who lost her sight as a teenager to an ultra-marathoner who pushes through a brutal foot infection while running across the Atacama Desert. And while these stories were somewhat interesting, they were as far removed from my own reality as an account of a Martian's struggles with discomfort would be.

I get the point Long is trying to make in this book: if these people can handle inordinate discomfort and come out better for the experience, surely we can handle the mildly uncomfortable situations in our own lives, right? This may be true, but comparing apples to oranges rarely has the desired effect. I ended up growing more and more frustrated as the book wore on, and I was relieved when I finished it--albeit no better equipped to navigate my own encounters with discomfort than I was when I began. ( )