The staggering complexity of the human body is designed for extraordinary things. If trained, it can power through grueling marathons in the suffocating heat of summer. Its hands possess an exquisite level of fine motor control. The vocal cords can modulate air to produce everything from a roaring battle cry to a delicate, operatic aria that can move an entire auditorium of listeners to tears.

When properly called upon, the body of an athlete can deadlift a barbell weighing half a ton. A frantic father can lift a 2-ton automobile off his trapped child in a glorious, terrifying outburst of raw, explosive energy.

The human body is indeed a spectacular, dynamic piece of structural engineering. Yet what have we chosen to do with this magnificent pinnacle of biological architecture? Mostly, we use it to sit on plush sofas, staring into glowing screens while a stranger drives a tepid burrito to our doorstep.

We live in an era of truly astonishing, almost comical convenience. For the vast majority of human history, simply staying warm, fed and informed required a massive expenditure of daily, manual effort. Today, if the ambient air in our living room fluctuates two or three degrees, a tiny wall-mounted computer whirs to life to correct the injustice. If we want to know a piece of obscure historical trivia, we no longer consult an encyclopedia; we ask an artificial intelligence model to chew on the information and spit it out as three bullet points. We have engineered a world entirely free of bumps, discomforts, delays and exertion, and we view this as the absolute peak of human progress.

But if you look at the actual data, a rather troubling picture begins to emerge. In our relentless quest to banish every conceivable speck of discomfort from our lives, we have started to turn ourselves into fragile jellies.

Neuroscientist Paul Taylor, in a presentation for his book Death by Comfort, said, “Modern humans are the most overweight, depressed, medicated and addicted cohort of adults that has ever lived, yet life has never been so good! … Most of us spend most of our day sitting on our backsides, and more than 50 percent of our diet is made up of ultra-processed foods …. Clearly, something is wrong with modern life.”

The trouble is that the human body is hyper-reactive and deeply transactional, operating on a strict “use it or lose it” policy. For centuries, obtaining food required walking miles to fetch water, hunt and farm. Bodies remained in constant motion and exertion. Bodily systems were engaged daily in manageable, meaningful ways, naturally maintaining strength and health.

When you remove your frame from the discomfort of hard work, the body looks at the total lack of struggle and, in effect, starts eviscerating your vitality from the inside out. Your bones become fragile; your muscles atrophy; your blood vessels lose their bounce.

According to the World Health Organization, a staggering 31 percent of adults worldwide and an unfathomable 81 percent of adolescents now fail to meet the absolute bare minimum requirements for weekly movement. We are, quite literally, resting ourselves to death.

It isn’t just our muscles that are going soft. Our brains are atrophying in much the same way. Consider what happens when you outsource your thinking to computers. Historically, learning things required a certain amount of productive effort. You had to read a difficult book, cross-reference physical sources, write out long notes, remember facts over long periods of time, connect them to new facts, and slowly, laboriously construct an understanding.

Now, if a solution takes more than four seconds to load on a smartphone, we experience frustration and often decide to skip it. The constant flooding of easy, effort-free entertainment from endless scrolling and binge-watching dramatically reduces our tolerance for the slow, messy frictions of ordinary life. We become less willing to master complex skills, read a dense chapter, or even engage in face-to-face conversation.

We’ve managed to automate our communities out of existence. In times past, we would talk to the local grocer or borrow a ladder from a neighbor, inadvertently resulting in building relationships. Today, we buy many necessities of life via a silent digital transaction. We’re digitally connected yet profoundly, devastatingly lonely.

What can we do about it?

There’s a principle in structural engineering worth borrowing: To prevent a structure from collapsing under unpredictable stress, you sometimes apply deliberate load. Controlled pressure builds tolerance. The same is true of the human body.

In daily life, this means intentionally introducing challenging choices into our routine to prevent our bodies and minds from assuming we have retired.

• Walk the extra mile: Take the stairs instead of the escalator. Try basic strength training to meet the demands of life.

• Earn your food: Spend time at home cooking your meals to receive the gratification of true nourishment instead of defaulting to instant, easy convenience foods and snacks.

• Read more: Spend 15 minutes actively wrestling with a complex piece of prose before letting an algorithm summarize it for you.

• Have a chat: Pick up the phone or knock on a neighbor’s door instead of sending a sterile text message.

When you read the Bible’s descriptions of human growth, the word “comfort” in this context is rarely mentioned. Instead, the biblical story presents friction and exertion as necessities for building resilience in body and character.

The Apostle Paul laid out a remarkably systematic progression of human development: “[W]e also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope” (Romans 5:3-4; New International Version).

This is a fascinating framework for growth. Paul suggests that character and hope don’t simply emerge out of nowhere but rather in the context of enduring manageable resistance.

The book of James takes it a step further, advising readers, “Consider it pure joy … whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance” (James 1:2-3; niv).

While these authors focused on spiritual development, their insights also apply to physical resilience: They understood that a life entirely shielded from challenges inevitably lacks stamina. They recognized that discipline and voluntary setting of boundaries are essential to forge a resilient spirit and body.

We have spent decades engineering our world to save us from daily effort, exertion and labor, but a life with all mountains leveled flat is a desert. The real test of our era is figuring out how to step away from the paradise of absolute, unblinking comfort and voluntarily face the challenges that keep us alive.