The Comfort Zone- Live Life Outside it!

We humans are creatures of habit and comfort.

Come with me as I explore the many ways we have condemned ourselves to living a pinched narrow existence.

Perhaps you sleep on the same side of the bed (left near the window- too near the alleyway) perhaps you wake up at the same time everyday (five fifteen a.m. on the dot) your breakfast perhaps is the same (toast  with ginger tea)

It will not be shocking to find out that you take the same route to work or school everyday (the walkway behind Mjomba’s kiosk next to the mogokaa seller)

At school you probably sit (if your teacher isn’t a tyrant who dictates where you park yourself) at the very back of the class- (backbenchers you know yourselves)

Who knows?

Maybe the books you read are of the same genre since high school; the films you watch are the same (of explosions, mayhem and violence- not good)

Come Sunday evening when Baba/Hubby/whoever invites you out you want nothing other than your usual nyama choma or shawarma with salad or masala chips.

Hey, there is ‘comfort’ in the familiar after all. (hence this whole blog post)

Even little kids seem to thrive, most of the time anyway, on what they are used to and what they are familiar with.

Which is why, Allah help us, you will find them crying up a storm if you put his juice in the white sippy cup when the only way he is going to drink anything is if it is in the sky blue Captain Shujaa bottle.

Oh the ruckus that that small oversight will kick up!

But then there is peace, rest, certainty and familiarity in what we know and what we are used to.

It’s called comfort zone for a reason: it is no-stress comforting!

It’s like as if we are saying: ‘the world can go haywire, what happens can happen but at least I know this. At least I can control this’.

We feel a sense of safety and security.

We humans, for the most part, we don’t like change; we fight it with all we have got. After all, change almost always brings uncertainty and who wants that icky feeling?

And yet.

And yet what if we stopped to ask ourselves from behind the cosy blanket we have wound around ourselves :

“what if there is more and better outside this force field of comfort I have built around myself? What if there is so much more and so much better?

How will I know if I don’t venture over the threshold I have put up to lock myself in?”

Usually, we will find that fear is what is holding us back:

“What if I venture outside my comfort zone, try something new and I fall flat on my face- sometimes literally?

What if I become the laughing stock?

What if I lose what I spent so many years working so hard for?

What if by trying something different I jeopardize so many things? What if I eat something different and upset my stomach?”

The what ifs spiral out of control causing us to hyperventilate and sending us rushing right back behind the cosy blanket.

The answer to the what ifs isn’t in yours or my hands, dear Reader. Only The Almighty knows the unseen.

But the truth is, the more willing we are to try new things, take different directions the more we open ourselves to new experiences and the more our minds expand and new beliefs are born.

When we shed old unhelpful beliefs that do nothing for our lives we find, by the grace of Allah, new opportunities open up, we meet new people, our mindsets improve and even our health improves!

How will we know unless we try?

All it requires is a tiny miniscule belief in ourselves for once and a big belief in the Almighty.

Ignore the ‘go big or go home’ concept.

Allow yourself to start small. Start with things that don’t cause you to break out in a cold sweat or gives you sleepless nights.

No one is saying we need to stand up and give a speech infront of hundreds of people (but hey go for it if that is what you want to start with!)

You can start with something as silly as changing your breakfast from toast to sweet potato.

Or you could ask to sit at the front near the blackboard. Who knows maybe that will make the Chemistry class seem a little less like Chinese!

Wherever you choose to start or whatever you choose to start with I can promise you this: by the Grace of Allah, your life will change.

And you will ask yourself : why didn’t I do this sooner?

Photos Courtesy of Pixabay.