Feet up or busy in the office ‒ treasure your comfort zone.
Don’t touch me on my comfort zone.
One of the best things people can tell me, or I can report to them, is that I have no news. It means life is calm and carrying on. Rewardless, regardless or ripple-free.
Sure, there are worries like bills and food prices and bloody Eishkom and the taxman nailing me again this year, and the whole world going bats**t, but nothing calamitous.
I am comfortably in my comfort zone.
If you are asked for advice on Life in General, here’s a suggestion: don’t tell someone to “get out of their comfort zone” before considering how hard that person has worked to build it.
Ditto before you shoot off to do that.
It is a challenge often presented as an incentive to try something new or different whether you want to or not. It can also be used as a blunt object to batter you onto a path you don’t want to take. It’s a taunt insinuating that you’re dull, boring or a scaredy cat.
People who fear being mistaken as someone who doesn’t want to learn or face new experiences in life will instantly feel “less than” or weak and many leap out of theirs without looking first.
The need to explore and try things is part of us humans: it’s how we have survived and grown as a species. Well, except for some who fixed their world view around the 1800s and believe “that’s how we did it in the old days” is reason enough to keep doing things that way. That’s not a comfort zone; it’s ignorance, unwillingness to learn or question your own beliefs, understand, change and grow.
We know life is a constant series of challenges, hurdles, failures and victories. Most people use curiosity, learning and awareness to jump them, climb them, even get smacked by them. These ventures can end in tears or jubilant fist pumps of victory. They steer us in directions that are difficult or fun. And it’s never too late to explore the roads you have not been down.
But comfort zones, like scars and laugh lines, are earned.
At some stage in life, you would have tried new things ‒ perhaps a new job, new city or country, new hobby. Or read a book that has made you rethink something fundamental in your life or belief system. If you love whatever it is you have tried and it has become part of your life, embrace it, it’s a win. You should wrap it up in your comfort blankie and keep it.
But you’re almost as certainly going to try things that you discover you hate or are just plain bad at. These discarded beliefs, activities or places are the building blocks of what become your comfort zone.
Building your circle of contentment takes years, and it can bulge in and out like an amoeba as you take in new cells and turf others out. But at some stage you could find a really happy comfort zone, one which you can cheerfully maintain and adapt.
When you get there, nourish it and take the nuclear option to preserve it. And remember, if it was easy, everyone would have one.
The Independent on Saturday