There is so much talk of the value of getting out of one’s “comfort zone” that the drive to do so, these days, is presented as a moral duty. Girls’ school prospectuses are rife with the importance of “risk-taking” as though it were inherently a good thing.
Surely it depends, case-by-case, on what that risk is? Holidays, it seems, are now meant to feature peril and hardship or they define you as unserious. You can’t even re-read What Maisie Knew for the 14th time without a little nagging voice saying, “Try something new, you sad old-timer.” Leaving this zone is seen as a vital part of a full life, well lived.
Yet there is hardly any talk about getting inside one’s comfort zone, instructions for climbing under its covers, permission for lolling and lounging in its soothing environs, feeling how its warmth and calm can reboot and revive you. Must it carry such a stigma? The presumption is that everyone knows how to find this place, because it is our natural habitat, our lazy go-to mode. The comfort zone sorely needs to be rebranded, for it is viewed as the definition of the no-good, dead-end slippery slope, at the top of which are pyjamas and toast cut into triangles, and at whose base lie squalor, self-loathing and agoraphobia.
But I think the comfort zone is becoming harder and harder to access, yet more and more necessary for survival and thriving. Rocking chairs and dressing gowns have as much life to them as waterfalls and roller coasters. Something like that, anyway.
Life whisks away comfort on a regular basis — routinely supplying bouts of grief, peril and alarm — so why would you organise a fake recreation of this, seek out false trouble and self-made hardship? I know happiness comes from difficulties overcome but there are quite enough of these stemming from natural causes. Why, my own imagination presents me with nail-biting scenarios every quarter of an hour or so.
Comfort zone
This morning, however, I was very much out of my comfort zone. I was in a state of self-made uneasiness, as I had been offered the chance to attend a workshop on work-life balance. A smart booklet in front of me read: “Welcome to the Get productive GRID — Goal Oriented, Inspiring Decisive and Soulful Holistic Productivity System for Creating Results in Balance with Nurturing Yourself.”
I was sitting round a table with a view of the backs of buildings, the table-top housing little stations of Post-its in eight colours, along with breath mints, ballpoints, note pads and highlighter pens. My resistance was high. This is both beyond me and beneath me, I couldn’t help feeling — but was it? New Year’s Eve had seen me amid a torrent of fireworks stopping for a second and looking into the night sky and asking myself, “What is it you really want from life?”
In the seminar, I thought of this lone figure illuminated by rockets as we were encouraged to focus on what thriving would really mean. We were asked what we would need to do, personally and professionally, to arrive where we wanted in the best shape. The importance of breaking things down into tasks and being goal-oriented was stressed but so was the need for rest and for sometimes doing things for no outcome — what children call play. I took a vast piece of paper and plotted my hopes for the coming year, the easy things and the difficult things, the areas of self-indulgence and the areas of heavy industry, work and home, family and career, greedy things and generous things and everything in between.
The highly intelligent, successful women on the course had the confidence to be warm and frank. I made notes when others said things that appealed to me: “Can I want more whilst being more grateful for what I already have?” seemed to strike a chord with everyone. The course leader was clever and subtle. When I asked her pesky questions such as, “Where do you stand on self-sabotage?” she said, “I am neither for it or against it.”
When I got home I looked at my map of the coming year and felt a surge of commitment to my plans: gumption, grist, determination. I was impressed. My new motto, “Push yourself and take it easy,” was complicated but it felt a bit inspiring, nonetheless, and that was comforting as well as comfort’s oddly stimulating reverse.
—Financial Times
