How often do you leave your comfort zone?

 

Ever since I could walk, my family dubbed me the adventurous one in the family. My sister was the perfect representation of a poised and responsible daughter, ever since her toddler years. On the other hand, I was quite the “wild child.” Not in the sense that I would be disobedient, but in the aspect that I would let my curiosity get the best of me, sometimes finding myself in sticky situations because of it. For example, I would run outside without any shoes on no matter what the surface I was sprinting onto was made of, and go up to random adults, tugging on their shirt to answer a random question that had materialized in my brain only seconds earlier. Thankfully none of these adults thought to kidnap me at the time. However, my outdoor barefoot adventures had a different outcome, as one day I stepped on an upward facing nail that had started to show signs of rust. Even then I didn’t learn my lesson, wanting to head right back outside shoeless once my foot was somewhat acceptably patched up. My mother had other plans though, forcing my feet into the prison of socks and shoes because she preferred that I keep the amount of holes in my foot to a minimum.

I would also never turn down a task even though I wasn’t exactly qualified for the job. For instance, when my neighbor asked me if I was able to use a staple gun to staple a tablecloth to a picnic bench, of course I said yes.

Did I have any experience whatsoever with a staple gun? Absolutely not.

I swear everything was going smoothly until one of the staples had the audacity to go through my right pinky. I remember slowly coming to the realization that the staple was not in fact lodged in the table but instead my finger. What a moment that was. It must’ve been the adrenaline or something, because my 11-year-old self simply pulled out the staple and went along with my business without registering the pain. That tablecloth wouldn’t staple itself, after all.

I continued to push myself into activities I didn’t exactly have experience or skill in, such as basketball. When I first picked up a basketball… it wasn’t pretty to say the least. I’m sure that I sent a disturbance in the force to every basketball player within a 10-mile radius because of how bad I was. 

However, as I’ve grown older, I’ve tried increasingly fewer activities that are “new” to me. I could think of a few reasons why this is the case. Maybe it’s because I have less free time, or maybe it’s because I’ve found things that I already enjoy doing and don’t feel the need to try out anything else. I often think of trying something new. But since it’s been so long since I’ve pushed myself out of my comfort zone, I also experience this newfound fear or nervousness surrounding the idea of it.

Yet I have no intention of stopping to push myself out of my comfort zone, no matter how hard or uncomfortable it may be. If I reflect for a second, I realize that a lot of the experiences that I’ve had come from pushing myself out of my comfort zone and trying something just for the heck of it. Even if it was simply sending an email to a complete stranger to ask a question, or impulsively deciding to join someone on the dancefloor, I’ve gained so many opportunities and longtime friends from a lot of the unplanned and “this may be a bad decision” moments. Though I’ll admit some attempts have ended less than successful, I can say with certainty that I don’t regret any of them.