I bought a computer yesterday. Brand spankin’ new, for the first time ever, because I’d always had either a work-issued model or a hand-me-down. (Also, because I’m a notorious tightwad, not to mention a Luddite.)
I had a long debate with the voices in my head before deciding what to purchase: stick with a PC, or spring for a Mac? While the latter excited me, it was intimidating, too. I haven’t used a Mac since college (approx. 4,000 years ago) and I’m a creature who’s sometimes slow to trade the soft arms of familiarity and for the uncertainty of change.
If you like your comfort zone as much as I do, you’ve probably spent an awful lot of time there over the years, feeling safe and secure in the space where there are respectable levels of predictability and control.
The space where you know what you know and trust what you trust.
The space where you’re reasonably confident because, for the most part, you know what to expect and how to execute.
No surprises in the comfort zone, right?
Until there are. And with many of those surprises comes pain.
Growing pains. Transition pains. Pain that most of us will go miles out of our way to avoid, but pain that must be dealt with in order to move successfully to the other side.
Much of the discomfort I’ve felt on the road of self-discovery is of the fear variety. (Alas, isn’t it all??) It seems fear is always waiting there for someone to poke a head out of the cave – like some sort of guard dog standing between us and freedom – snarling and barking and seemingly ready to attack at any moment.
That’s usually the point where I tell myself that the pain of tussling with Fear just ain’t worth it… that I’ll be safer and cozier and more content back over in my little Comfort Zone… and that the smartest thing to do is simply retreat.
“You can choose courage, or you can choose comfort, but you cannot choose both.”
-Brené Brown
But here’s the thing: If we don’t take the risks, we won’t ever reap the rewards. We’ll just stay stuck. And boring. And never know what beautiful things we might create and experience and give to the world.
As Brené Brown says, “You can choose courage, or you can choose comfort, but you cannot choose both.”
Or, in the case of the computer, you can have a Mac or you can have a PC.
So I gulped and bought the Mac – for the precise reason that it scared me.
I chose it as an intentional act of letting go of some serious, for lack of a better word, bullshit: the silly LABELS that tell us stuff like that there are (cool) Mac people and there are (lame) PC people, and the MYTH that one can’t try to become the other.; the mentality of SCARCITY that keeps us from investing in ourselves; the INSECURITY that suggests dogs like us are too old to learn new tricks; the FRUSTRATION that comes with turning off AUTOPILOT; and, finally, the fundamental aversion to CHANGE, which too often prevents us from going after something more – or, at least, something different.
Now, you may feel there’s a whole lot of overthinking happening here – the choice at had, after all, is far from life or death – and you are probably right.
BUT… what if this is exactly the amount of examination we should inject into our decisions, even the ones that feel small?
I believe these everyday considerations are ideal for radically shifting our thoughts – because, honestly, that’s where the game is played. Day in and day out, we practice fielding these mental grounders and line drives and fly balls until the right moves become instinctual, even under pressure.
That’s what personal and spiritual growth looks like, too: a breath-by-breath, minute-by-minute, year-after-year practice of selecting bravery over fear, in all the ways that can present itself – particularly when the very bravest thing we can do in a given moment is to be vulnerable.
So let’s have courage, friends. When faced with the choice to stretch beyond comfort or slink back to the Dim Cave Of Safety – FOR GOODNESS SAKE, LET’S STRETCH! That’s the way we learn. That’s the way we build confidence. And, most importantly, it’s the way we get unstuck.
