‘A ship is always safe at the shore, but that is not what it is built for’, according to Albert Einstein. ‘Old ways won’t open new doors’ according to someone else, and apparently ‘life begins at the end of your comfort zone’. A quick search for ‘comfort zone quotes’ on Pinterest will leave you with enough wisdom, presented in pretty colours, cool fonts and meaningful graphics, to convince even the most reticent that getting out of your comfort zone is utterly imperative to your existence as a human being and will change your life in ways you couldn’t even dream of. It will make you the happiest, most fulfilled version of yourself.
I don’t mind admitting – I fell for it. Hook, line and sinker.
Whether it was helped along the way by what Brené Brown refers to as ‘midlife unravelling’; a subconscious realization that I needed to rescue myself from depression and anxiety; or just sheer boredom, (or, most likely, a combination of all three), I heeded the brightly-coloured advice to get out of my comfort zone. I packed my bags (literally) and off I went, in search of those new doors to open.
There was only one problem – I locked the door to the comfort zone behind me and buried the key at the bottom of one of the bags I had packed, then promptly forgot which bag the key was in.
Bags, doors, keys … I’m obviously fond of a metaphor or ten.
Here’s the reality of it though: I was miserable in that ‘comfort zone’.
I knew I wasn’t at all happy, despite what my friends and family might have thought. Yes, I was bubbly and funny, chatty and open. However, I was acting my socks off. I knew I felt like I was just existing, rather than living a life I wanted to live, and that I felt like I was just drifting along with nothing really to show for myself. I had a good life by many standards, an extremely good life, but I was miserable. I was more than miserable, I was utterly, horribly, painfully, depressingly miserable. The comfort zone was a bleak place.
So, being a bit of a ‘fixer’ personality-type, and enabled by my Pinterest-toned wisdom, I made a decision to get as far away from that comfort zone as I could, in the hope of fixing myself.
I did literally pack bags to leave the comfort zone. I moved. Bi-located between two cities for the first while, then packed up completely. I went on a group holiday, not the first choice of the self-professed solo traveler extraordinaire. And there were many other things that the comfort-zone dweller wouldn’t have done. Some were fun, some were scary, some are memories that I cherish, and some are experiences I’d rather forget. I created an almost completely different life for myself though, bearing practically no semblance to the one I’d left behind.
If all of that Pinterest-wisdom is to be believed, I should be as happy as a pig in you-know-what after all of that. Only I wasn’t. Life outside the comfort zone wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. In fact, I’d gone hurtling back into the wall of depression and anxiety that I was trying to get away from in the first place.
Then the penny dropped. (And the metaphors start again.)
We’re sold the idea that the comfort zone is the worst place in the world, where good intentions, motivation, achievement, success and happiness go to die a miserable lonely existence. We’re led to believe that staying there is lazy, unfulfilling, a waste of our youth, middle-age or any other age for that matter,
But, to go back to Einstein’s quote and that metaphor, the ship that’s not meant to stay at shore DOES have to come back to shore sometimes. And when it does, it needs an anchor. No matter how big or small that boat may be. In all the ‘outside my comfort zone’ activity, I lost sight of the shore and I forgot the anchor even existed.
Not being a medical professional, I only speak for myself and my own mental health, but I’m sure I’m not alone in this one … I NEED a comfort zone as part of my coping with depression and anxiety. I need the familiar. I need the low-impact, low-energy, low-investment days. I need to not be trying to better myself 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. I need to not be competing with the world 365 days a year. I need to be comfortable with doing the same thing that I’ve done for years. I need to be lazy. It took me a year of running away from the comfort zone to realise that I needed it. Desperately, some days.
However, other days, not so much! I like life outside the comfort zone too much, so there’s a lot more weighing anchor to be done, but the ship will come back to shore more often.