My Comfort Zone is Pretty Nice, Actually

Life begins at the end of your com­fort zone. 

lit­er­al­ly every Influencer on social media

You know what I mean. This rah-rah phrase is often accom­pa­nied by a pic­ture of a cir­cle with the term com­fort zone writ­ten inside it. Outside the cir­cle is text decry­ing the mag­ic or growth zone or where life begins. It’s the ral­ly­ing cry of the self-improve­ment indus­try, remind­ing us to push past our self-imposed lim­i­ta­tions to lead a big life. There is plen­ty of sci­ence to back this up. That which is uncer­tain or uncom­fort­able forces our brains to grow and learn. As an objec­tive-dri­ven goal medal­ist, get­ting out of my com­fort zone is a phi­los­o­phy I can get behind. 

But not right now. 

I am in a sea­son of soul stretch­ing, in a time of forced rear­rang­ing of expec­ta­tions and dreams. Also in the busiest time in my life, I have stretched myself so thin as to become vir­tu­al­ly invis­i­ble. In ser­vice of a more for­ti­fied future, I am giv­ing myself per­mis­sion to hang out as long as I want in my com­fort zone. And I got­ta tell you, it’s actu­al­ly pret­ty darn nice here. 

Humans are hard­wired to seek psy­cho­log­i­cal and phys­i­cal com­fort. The mod­ern term com­fort zone was coined by the writer of an HVAC user’s man­u­al; it refers to 68 to 76 degrees, the tem­per­a­ture range where humans are most com­fort­able. There is peace and sta­bil­i­ty in the com­fort zone.

The word com­fort aris­es from the late Latin con­fort­are, mean­ing to strength­en. That which gives solace also gives strength. I’m lean­ing into things that offer ease in this moment to cre­ate a stronger me tomor­row. But how to find solace in a world that rarely slows and cer­tain­ly doesn’t stop?

In my first few gui­tar lessons, I remem­ber think­ing it was going to be pret­ty easy. This is a G, this is C, this is a D chord. No problem. 

“Add the truth, and I can play any coun­try song in his­to­ry, right?” I joked. 

My gui­tar teacher smiled, gra­cious­ly allow­ing for my naïveté. Soon enough, every week grew hard­er by build­ing on the skills of the pre­vi­ous week. There were barre chords, then ham­mer chords, then com­pli­cat­ed fin­ger rolls that asked my hands to per­form sep­a­rate but chore­o­graphed gym­nas­tics. It grew pro­gres­sive­ly more com­pli­cat­ed and nuanced.

Comfort is the exact oppo­site of that. Our hearts and minds start out com­pli­cat­ed, full of tricky chord pro­gres­sions and baf­fling fin­ger licks. The trick is mov­ing from the com­plex to the ever more effortless. 

Comfort is carv­ing out time to return to the simple. 

While plea­sure can be bought, com­fort must be found. For me, com­fort lies in being alone in nature, in things that weren’t cre­at­ed but sim­ply are. Deep breaths of fresh air and eyes peeled for the mag­ic that is too often over­looked. The math­e­mat­i­cal per­fec­tion of a nau­tilus. Morning dew out­lin­ing a spider’s web. A hap­py sun­flower blow­ing gen­tly in the breeze. A deer’s sil­hou­ette,  out­lined against the sun­rise, a dol­phin chas­ing a shrimp boat, a grack­le doing his sil­ly bird dance at the feed­er. Wiggling my toes in the sand at the beach. Dangling my feet off the dock at the lake. Reading or nap­ping under my favorite tree, toast­ing the sun­rise with an extra cup of cof­fee, walk­ing bare­foot so much I am forced to wash my feet before I climb into bed each night. 

Late sum­mer is my favorite time of year, a time when the weath­er and the land­scape beg to be enjoyed. I’m tak­ing a sum­mer sab­bat­i­cal to soak it in before the wind and rain push me back inside. Nature offers com­fort, and I’m tak­ing her up on it.

Maybe your life begins at the end of your com­fort zone. But mine is start­ing again right inside it.