I’ve always hated the term “comfort zone.”
Maybe that’s because I’ve always been so okay with the idea of staying in mine. Don’t get me wrong, I love a challenge. Difficult classes, tough workouts and brain-frying logic games are all things that I’d consider both incredibly painful and also incredibly worth it. But challenging doesn’t necessarily mean uncomfortable. In a lot of ways, I’d like to think that throughout high school I’ve gotten comfortable with challenges and the idea that life isn’t always going to be easy.
But everyone is always striving to push themselves past the limits of their comfort zones, deciding that being uncomfortable is the only way they’ll succeed in life. Of course, that version of success often means getting into a top college and fitting as many extracurriculars and awards as possible into their high school career. There’s an expectation that everyone’s version of “success” must look identical. And for a while I bought into it.
Pushing myself outside of my comfort zone brought me to Talon, where I knew I’d have to interview people I’d never met and improve my communication skills. For anyone who doesn’t know me, I’ve never been very good at getting myself to talk to people. I have my circle of friends and traveling outside it can feel intimidating at times. So when I treated Talon as a “drop out of an airplane with no parachute” situation, I absolutely hated it. No shocker there. I almost quit because I’d made up my mind that I was only there to be uncomfortable.
It wasn’t until I met the then-future-EIC, Milan Grbović, and the infectious enthusiasm he brought to Talon, that I saw a new perspective — that it’s possible to both be challenged by and love what you do. Once I followed his lead and started focusing on all the other reasons I had to be there, like community and a newfound curiosity for journalism, I stopped resenting my return to class each day. I stopped believing that I needed to be uncomfortable and started allowing myself to enjoy being there, meeting new people and discovering more about myself.
That’s where I struggle with the whole concept of a comfort zone. See, I don’t think being comfortable is as bad as we make it out to be. I’m quite comfortable where I’m at, but that doesn’t mean I’ve stopped pushing myself to try new things, acquire new skills and get better at old ones. For so long, I refused to be comfortable with myself. In believing that I wasn’t doing enough for myself and for others, I couldn’t give what I thought was the bare minimum. Giving more than what you have simply doesn’t work and you just end up with a net loss of energy. After a while, that net loss builds up into burnout.
Succeeding in life shouldn’t be synonymous with forcing uncomfortability upon oneself for the purpose of growth. Life doesn’t have to be miserable to be worth living. Finding the balance between pushing yourself and personal happiness is part of figuring it all out. There isn’t a perfect answer to it, no four walls of a safe zone and I don’t think there has to be.
