The sin of our comfort zones.
August 12, 2007 at 1:20 pm | Philosophy | 2 comments
With the vast majority of people, what they do is defined by what is easiest or most comfortable.
To expand, a comfort zone is the zone (unsurprisingly) in which people feel comfortable.
This zone may be emotional, skill based, locational or otherwise.
Outside this zone most people react by doing whatever they can to get back into their comfort zone.
For example, many people stay in the same job for years, decades on end simply because they are comfortable in this role and do not want to go through the ‘stress’ of the unfamiliar new job process.
Equally people as they age become less and less likely to learn new skills. I recall reading a report which said that only around 20% of people over the age of 35 ever learnt any significant new skills, and though I loathe to cite statistics for ‘proof’ (especially unreferenced ones), it tallies with my personal experience.
We are defined by our comfort zones, they cause us to repeat the same daily patterns over and over again year in year out.
Infact, I would go so far as to say that comfort is akin to boredom.
If you are comfortable with a situation for too long, it will manifest itself as boredom.
Comfort is a lack of challenge, how can something that doesn’t challenge you be interesting?
Of course, you may perceive it as being interesting, but it’s actually the same as switching off your brain and coasting on auto pilot.
For an everyday example of this one need only look at television, which to me is virtually the same as sleeping, except with the caveat that you’re not refreshed afterwards!
It’s unreasonable to attempt to vary your day every day, but to at least limit it to cycles of a few months or a year perhaps is more achievable.
If you ask most people if doing the 9-5 every day and going out drinking once a week with a holiday once a year was ‘living’ they’d reply with a resounding no.
You can then ask them what would be living, and they’d reply in line with their interests and fantasies, be it hobnobbing with the rich and famous or going rock climbing and sky diving every day.
But doubtless if you ask the people that do these things day in day out whether they’d regard it as living the majority would reply no, and cite something completely different.
This could easily lead you into dismissing it as ‘The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence’, which is exactly what I’m saying, it is always greener, but the conclusion to draw from this is not the nihilistic ‘Be content with what you have’ that most people feel it is, but more the idea that we should keep hopping the fence to see what shade the grass is on the other side!
Because in life there are an unlimited number of fences, a person can never experiences all the facets of it in a single life time, but oh-so-few people even try it is criminal.
This leads me to my meaning of life, which is that it is to experience.
Experience what? Everything! Be a glutton of experiences, cram into your capacious maw all that life has to offer!
If you find yourself being presented with an opportunity and saying ‘no’ to it, you’re doing it wrong!
If you can find it within yourself to throw yourself into new situations constantly and land on your feet, and once these experiences are said and done draw upon them to deal with the next one, then you can truly say that you’ve lived your life and not coasted along the path of least resistance.
MAH HED HERTZ
good introductory post. I really liked it. If i get this right, and you’re planning on going from the UK to Australia, and you’re only 20 and relatively new to motorcycle riding (i got this from ADVrider) then you the craziest and most ambitious person i’ve ever heard of. I also admire you greatly.
i like what you said about trying to experiance everything, and not say no to going out of your comfort zone. however, i’ve met a lot of people that use that “you only live once” attitude to justify things like drug use and such. there is a limit. but i know you weren’t thinking of anything harmful like that when you wrote this.