Being comfortable scares me.
The conversation that brings this out the most for me is, ironically, where geographically peers want to go to college. I’m not going to say that warm weather isn’t nice, but of all times in my life, why would I want to stay in my comfort zone now? How is it that when we are heading towards the most important time of our lives that the first reason for going somewhere is finding a place that makes you 100% comfortable and not a place that can challenge you to grow and be better? In my pursuit of figuring out my own behaviors, I just want to understand these two fundamental questions: what compels many of us to want to always be comfortable, and why am I always afraid of being comfortable?
If anything, this mentality I have comes from this idea that I should never be 100% satisfied with what I’ve done. For me, I’ve always searched for ways to further my life, whether productive, and just any way possible. I just want to try and do something either because I enjoy doing it, or that it challenges me to think in new ways. I wouldn’t necessarily call this comfort, but that I find solace in continuing to find new ways I can get better in life.
What’s more, this restlessness that comes from my own refusal to accept being comfortable comes from my own reluctance to sometimes let people get to know me at times. I keep a lot pretty distant and away from most people. I don’t know whether it’s been me seeing people be betrayed by people close to them, or if personally, I’ve seen people hurt me even when I share certain things about my character and history. I don’t want to let people, being in my own comfort zone per se, because I fear people getting to know me and later doing something with whatever information I may share.
And it’s not that I’m the opposite of a control freak either. I don’t mind having things outside of my control. No one is supposed to have that. I can never truly keep track of the behaviors of those who may share certain inner secrets. But it is this irrational fear that makes me fear comfort as well.
For me, in a not so ironic/meta way, being uncomfortable is comfortable for me. I know how to operate being anxious at times, always forcing myself to calculate and figure out how I can maximize my time and opportunities, which while helpful at times, restricts my own ability to enjoy life. And I’m aware of that. It’s unhealthy, ultimately unproductive, and it restricts my own ability to pursue things that I enjoy for fear of being too comfortable.
But I’m trying to change that.
Whether that’s spending time with people I care about more to be smarter in my unproductive times by trying to read even ten pages of my free reading book, I’m getting closer to getting used to being a bit more comfortable and relaxing a bit. The constant go, go, go mentality is great at times, but learning how to slow that down at times is incredibly important for me to live a more fulfilling life, a life I want to take advantage of for however much time I may have left.
Being Noah Tesfaye #56: Being Comfortable Scares Me
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