This is the first in a series of blogs that I’m posting in response to a challenge posed by Winnie Kao, a blogger who launched “Your Turn Project,” which urges wayward bloggers like me to post a blog every day for a week.
Today’s question is “Why are you doing the Your Turn Challenge?”
Because I’m addicted to my Comfort Zone, that’s why. I’m addicted to the toxic coziness of my risk-avoiding Comfort Zone, destroyer of dreams extraordinaire.
Aren’t I overstating it a bit? I wish I were. But the reality is that an unnatural attachment to the dreaded, ever-expanding Comfort Zone is the main reason that I and so many others aren’t living our heart’s desires.
Yes, we may be content and perhaps even happy at times but it’s the kind of happiness that is a pale facsimile for the joy that arises when we’re showing up in a way that is not… comfortable.
Like writing this blog. I’ve never written a daily blog. Ever. In fact, looking back over my blog archives, there have been times when a year has gone by without a post. Shocking. So that’s why I’m doing this. It’s also why, in the years I have remaining on this planet, I’m determined to spend as much time in my Discomfort Zone as I can possibly tolerate.
It’s not as though I haven’t been here before. Once I did a tandem parachute jump out of an airplane. It was so thrilling, I felt as though I owned the planet. A couple of years ago, despite the Comfort Zone Dominatrix having reduced me to a state of anxiety bordering on paralysis, I got up on stage and sang a blues song in front of a live band. It was wonderful.
And just last week I said “yes” to an opportunity to have a TV crew come to my house and interview me about my work as a Feng Shui consultant.
The Comfort Zone Dominatrix did NOT want to. She wanted time for me to become more accomplished in the profession, she wanted me to refer them to another consultant with a nicer house and more experience, she wanted me to become someone smarter, younger, richer, better in every way in order to be worthy of saying yes to something like that.
The Comfort Zone Dominatrix within would have us all defer our dreams indefinitely. In fact, this entity would prefer that we forget that we even have dreams. To give it the benefit of the doubt, it may be motivated by a hyper-vigilant desire to protect us from the slightest whiff of a risk, but like the “well-intentioned” friend who, after spending time in her company, always makes you feel just a teensy bit diminished, The Comfort Zone dominatrix is a killer and it means business.
So that’s why I’m hanging out in the Discomfort Zone and writing this blog. I want to live. It’s as simple as that.