We’re taught to avoid stress — but what if it's the very thing that helps us grow?

A life without challenges leaves a man undeveloped. A life with too much stress can break him. Tension is the balance between relaxation and stress.

Plants offer a counterintuitive lesson: pruning helps them thrive. When a gardener cuts off branches and stresses the plant, the plant actually grows. It enters a state of renewal, channeling its energy into fresh, focused growth.

This principle of growth through pruning isn’t limited to plants.

I have two younger brothers who are still in high school. They had a choice between two schools — one known for being demanding, the other more relaxed. They chose the latter, worried the other might be too stressful.

I feel for them. High school was stressful for me too, and sometimes it felt like too much. And yet, I’m so glad I challenged myself with advanced courses. I carried that same rigor into college. Without those challenges, I wouldn’t be able to reap the fruits of that intellectual labor. It was a gift to my future self.

Without tension, we risk becoming too loose. If we don’t exercise our physical bodies, our muscles atrophy. The same happens with our intellectual and creative faculties. It may be inconvenient, but it’s true: tension is good for us.

Music has no arc without tension. When I create music, I consolidate all my background in theory into a simple idea: there is tension and release. Musicians know this as V-I chord progressions, with tritone substitutions and modulations—but whatever the form, we’re always creating movement. Tension is what keeps a song alive.

And yet we’re wired to seek pleasure and avoid pain. In an age of convenience, algorithmic feeds, and content engineered for ease, how do we teach ourselves—and the next generation—to seek challenge? How can we expect anyone to swim upstream in a culture so geared toward comfort?

I don’t claim to have an answer. But maybe the first step is this: ask yourself, where has tension in your life led to something better? When has it made you stronger, wiser, more resilient?

We need more conversation around the spiritual practice of choosing challenge. Without it, we slowly lose the strength we didn’t know we were building.

Tension isn’t something to escape — it’s something to engage. Avoid it too long, and we risk losing the very things that make us strong.