Imagine you never leave your house. It’s the safest thing to do. It’s also the most comfortable. No matter what it’s like outside, or what potential dangers or disappointments await, being inside your house will keep you as comfortable as you want to be and as safe as you can be. You can curl up under the doona or have a few beers and watch TV, read a book, listen to music- enjoy life’s little pleasures and take it easy.
Now try it for more than one whole day, or maybe two. What’s the first thing you crave after a few days at home being sick? Or after a lazy weekend? Possibly human contact, and some adventure. Imagine if you had a dog and kept it locked up inside, no walks, no excitement. We humans are the same.
But for many people we make a habit of living entirely within our comfort zone. And yet despite our safety and comfort, we are completely unfilled. This is because to be fulfilled we have to push ourselves, we have to be proud to say, “I did that, it was hard, but I did it, and now I feel great”. It’s like going to the gym, no one says, “I love sweating my ass off, feeling inferior and being short of breathe”. But after we’ve recovered from a workout and had a shower we feel alive and with energy. No one comes back from the jungle and goes “that was a luxurious, comfortable experience”. They come back (hopefully) and are buzzing with stories of what they saw after they survived the mosquitoes, dangersous animals and endless humidity.
Life is the same. We all need our days of nothing to relax and recharge our bodies. But if you leave your body on recharge without using it will fizzle out and malfunction.
There’s a reason they call it the comfort zone. The good thing is, the more you jump out of it, the more it expands. Suddenly asking people out or saying what you mean isn’t as scary as it used to be. You realize that being uncomfortable isn’t such a bad thing. That’s also where the excitement and can come from.
The danger is that in the end you will look back and go, “I wish I had have tried that”.
The danger is that right now you aren’t actually doing what you want to do.
If this is the case, on’t let that happen. Go and do it! Live life. If you try and fail, you can try again, or you can see that it wasn’t so bad.