Comfort Zones Are Meant To Be Left

Photo by Edson de Assis from Pexels

The sunny predictability of Los Angeles weather. Warm and gooey mac and cheese. The soothing taste of a spicy, milky, iced chai tea latte. Every single episode of Gilmore Girls. The twists and turns of the 101 South heading into Hollywood. The soft little nuzzle of a cat begging to be let under the covers in the middle of the night. With each of these things, I am incredibly familiar.

Growing up in the suburbs of Los Angeles, I knew strip malls, palm trees, relentless heat, and traffic-ridden boulevards like the back of my hand. I very much considered myself a city girl — an LA girl — through and through. Freeway-talk like “take the 405 to the 10 and get off at La Brea” was part of my vocabulary (yes SNL’s ‘The Californians’ skit was realistic). The rolling, sparkly Hollywood Hills were a consistent backdrop. Nature was really not my thing.

For most of my life, I was happy with what I knew — comfortable with what my Southern Californian world encompassed. This was my comfort zone, and I didn’t see why I should ever leave it.

I guess it’s human to be content with what we’re most intimately familiar with. It’s not uncommon to hear of someone growing up in the kind of charmingly tiny town where everyone knows each other’s coffee order and never leaving, or for someone to want to stay close to their family.

But I think my comfort zone had a particular hold on me. I’m the type of person that really needs to know what to expect. I can’t exist with too much uncertainty. I want to know how the story ends. Launching forward without so much as an outline is terrifying. Maybe you can understand firsthand exactly what I mean.

Then, my risk-taking, wild, spontaneous, Renaissance man of a husband came along. Scaling mountains, jumping into random lakes, and turning onto unmarked roads came naturally to him; adventure, his way of life.

Each time we’d visit his hometown in Colorado, he’d take me on a hike. “I want you to push yourself this time,” he’d say. But mostly, once we’d reached the top of a relatively unchallenging mountain, I’d shrink away from the edge. Knees shaking, palms sweating, all I could imagine was tragically falling to my death. This was so far outside of my comfort zone, and every cell in me screamed to tuck myself away back into the land of the known, to give up halfway up the hike and go sit in the car instead.

Then, one sun-soaked Colorado afternoon, we hiked up to a waterfall. With each return to the state, I’d become a little more sure-footed, but I was still no true hiker. But that day, he challenged me to scale a little mountain with him. “I want you to see the view at the top. I promise it’s worth it. I’ll go behind you so if you slip, I’ll catch you,” he said.

So we embarked on our way up. For the first bit, I was basking in my new climbing abilities — proud of myself, even, and feeling like I was channeling my inner Pocahontas as I contorted my limbs. Then, a voice rang out inside my head: Look down, it said. And though I knew this was the exact wrong choice, I looked down. My heart sank, my breath grew shallow, my legs went limp, and my eyes welled up with tears. The sharp rocks and steep drop below me taunted me. I’m going to fall. I’m going to die. There’s no way I’ll make it the rest of the way up, I thought.

I froze in terror. “I can’t do this. I can’t. I want to turn around,” I called out.

“Yes, you can. I’m right behind you,” he said. After a little back and forth, he literally pushed me up the mountain. I wanted so desperately to quit, to shrink away into my safe little bubble on flat land. Images of plunging to my death replayed over and over again in my mind.

Then, with my Renaissance man right behind me, I came to a conclusion: I knew the only way out of this was up — I couldn’t turn back now, and the promise of the view up at the top, the promise of the end that was near, the trail that would save me if I just kept going, pushed me forward. I took each advance slowly, and finally, reached the top.

I had quite literally climbed out of my comfort zone — crawled, really. And at the top of that little mountain, the view truly was worth it. The majestic curves, the army of pine trees, the clear, bright sky… they were breathtaking, so very outside of anything I’d ever known before. And yet, that made them all the more beautiful to me. To see what had always been just beyond my threshold of comfort struck in me a sense of awe, wonder at the handiwork of the Creator of it all.

It’s remarkably intimidating to venture out into the unknown without so much as a guarantee. But it’s also so worth it. These safe bubbles we dwell in encompass so little of what our astonishingly lovely, glorious, beautiful world has to offer. All the wonder in the world stays hidden from us forever if we don’t ever push past what’s familiar to us — and we stay hidden forever, too. Our comfort zones, though so cozy and secure and stable, banish us to our tiny, tame world.

Comfort zones are meant to be left — they keep us safe and content for a time, but eventually, we leave. And I think, after truly drinking in the marvels of the unknown and unfamiliar, it’s not possible to ever fully hide ourselves away again in our comfort zone. We can’t stay comfortable forever when we’re aware of all that is just beyond comfort.