Any change, even a change for the better, is always accompanied by drawbacks and discomforts.

Bennett’s aphorism stresses that improvement is rarely painless: even beneficial reforms disrupt habits, unsettle identities, and impose transitional costs. The line pushes back against naïve “progress” narratives by insisting that gains and losses are entangled—comfort, familiarity, and competence in the old order are surrendered before the advantages of the new are fully felt. Read psychologically, it also normalizes resistance to change: discomfort is not proof that a change is wrong, but a predictable accompaniment of adaptation. The remark therefore functions both as a caution (plan for trade-offs) and as reassurance (unease is part of growth).