Get Out of the Zone
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Well, folks, spring is here, and boy howdy, is it a welcome change. These great outdoors of the Greater Vancouver Regional District have been calling me for a long time, and for a long time, I’ve ignored their calls. You see, believe it or not, Dr. Matt likes being comfortable, and hesitates when something is outside of his comfort zone.
So regardless of whether or not I have wanted to do certain things, like scale a mountain, or (in the wintertime) shred the backcountry on a snowboard, I’ve consistently had the fear of doing something outside of my comfort zone, combined with the fear of not achieving whatever it might be that I would set out to do.
I know, I know, you’re surprised that Dr. Matt would ever be afraid of anything. To tell you the truth, I’ve been surprised myself. I mean, here I am, someone who totally encapsulates what it is to be awesome, and I’ve hesitated to do things that would multiply my awesome factor by at least 8. That’s just stupid.
But, you know, folks, I’ve realized that all of us have things that are outside of our comfort zone. We know it, because we know that it is a fixed zone. If there weren’t limits to our comfort, we would call it a comfort infinity, which would be stupid, because if it’s infinity, we might as well just not identify it at all, because it seems rather odd and conspicuous.
So we all have this comfort zone thingy, and for some reason, many of us feel a drive to step outside of it, which sure is a strange thing. I mean, why not just stay happy and comfy in our little zone? Why would we ever leave? (I’ll answer since this is a blog/podcast, and I don’t have time to wait for you.) I think it’s because we are creatures that collect experiences. Inside our zone are all of our experiences that we already know. Sure, there may be little pieces about the experiences in our zone that we can learn more about, or come to a deeper understanding. But… when we step outside of our zone, and grab a new experience, then pretty soon, we expand our zone. And then the wealth and diversity of things within our zone is quite wealthy and diverse. And that’s a good thing.
So, get out there, people. Go outside your zones. Stop playing around in the zone you already know. You can always come back to those things, because they remain in your zone. Step out there into the great unknown.
Or just get a girlfriend who climbs mountains.
Just My Thoughts,
Dr. Matt*
