"You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. What you'll discover will be wonderful. What you'll discover is yourself." - Alan Alda
It is easy to become confined within the everyday sameness of life. We repeat everything over and over because it is what we do. There is comfort in doing the same thing over and over again. So we train ourselves to get into these patterns and work to avoid any surprises.
When something outside of that comfort zone occurs, it surprises us, we shriek and complain. But our comfort zone is there and we expend our efforts to returning to our singular place of comfort.
The problem is the comfort zone will never help you reach goals.
I read an article called Stepping out of My Comfort Zone. The writer describes a life of running nearly every day. The same thing, over and over again. It was a life pretty much confined to what was comfortable. As life often does, a knee problem arose which was not completely debilitating, but presented a need to make new choices.
Choices are there if we are willing to look for them.
We often have the sameness of our daily lives upset by little circumstances. Our nature is to work hard to get back into our old comfort zone; onto that same Hot Wheels(R) track.
So what choice do you have?
For the writer above, the choice might be to have surgery, physical therapy and lots of training to get back into running form. This can be done with no guarantee other than knowing when done you will be at the same place you started. Don't get me wrong as there are plenty of cases where this is the right decision.
Just bear with me as I make my point.
Working hard to get back to the same place you started does not stop time. We end up back on the same treadmill running in place; in place within our comfort zone. Is that we wanted to simply return to where we were?
Our second choice is to take the change as opportunity. We could choose to use the diversion as a way to propel us to something new and greater. The runner mentioned above pushed herself to try something different. She got off that straight track and out of her comfort zone. She is still physically active but became involved in an organization dear to her heart.
Her life stepped forward to something greater; find something greater.
Life will tend to "push us out the door" of our comfort zone at various times. Will we turn and rush back inside? Or will we choose to observe life by looking towards the future horizon?
Let life push you off the couch and out into the wilderness.
Be amazed by what you will find out there ... you.
Stay inspired my friends!
