To Flower or remain in the bud.

COMFORT ZONE.

There is much talk of progress and success nowadays. Motivational programs are everywhere. In what meaning of the word are we talking? For argument’s sake, lets confine ourselves to make it mean: Advancement in career and money making prospects. This then presupposes that everyone would always be striving to improve one’s earning capabilities and keep on rising in one’s working domain to reach higher and higher positions in the given hierarchy. This may be the first fallacy but let’s accept it as true for now.

How many of us are really prepared to go that extra mile to achieve this so called goal, which ideally everyone is expected to be pursuing? As I see it, the goal is more in the desire form than in practice. Every goal has ladders and every ladder has steps. Every step necessitates a struggle or overcoming a shortcoming. This has two sides to the coin. One: One has to gauge correctly what is it that will make us go forward towards our goal. A sincere and impersonal guide and mentor are needed and they are extremely difficult to find or even recognize. Two: Once the elements requiring correction en route are understood, a great effort is needed to retrain ourselves with new thought patterns and habits. Subconscious patterns, inculcated since the day we are born are deeply embedded in us and we have to literally fight against their hold on our everyday lives.

My personal perception is that most prefer to find a minimum sustenance program in life and stay within their comfort zones doing little to even accept the fact that its their own shortcomings that is keeping them back. Even when life gives us a knock or two and is kind enough to show us the way and the error of our ways, we find enough logic to rationalize and let the lesson slip into the comfortable slot of unpleasant occurring.

Scurrying back into one’s comfort zone is a natural and primary tendency. This is at all levels; mental, emotional and physical. Laziness influenced by arguments from our ego wins over effort most often. Change means learning and changing habits and this requires a concerted and very conscious effort. Is this sustainable in real life? Why disturb the status quo?

Take for instance the status of most marriages. Is it a made-for-each-other existence or a compromise where we learn to coexist for the comforts of a home? There are wives being battered but they continue to stay put. There are husbands being nagged to death but they continue to stay put. There are millions of people stuck in jobs and situations they hate but doing very little to take the next step that will take them to better their existence. How does one explain this? Simple: It is so much simpler to live and continue within one’s existing known comfort zones.

Lets look around us. How many people are bothered to improve their communication ability yet never failing to complain that nobody understands them? How many are complaining that there are no avenues to progress in their lives yet failing to take any initiative whatsoever except grumbling? How many of us are constantly criticizing the other guy or blaming fate for all the ills and happily wasting time to make the world hear our version over and over again?

This is not only the soft option but also the option of cowards who prefer to scurry back into their zone of comfort at the first hint of troublesome effort like frightened mice into their mouse holes.