I'll Stay In My Comfort Zone, Thanks

It has been a week of venturing out of my comfort zone. As a rule, that’s not something I particularly like to do. Because why be uncomfortable on purpose? Taking cold showers, swimming in treacherous weed-strewn lakes, performing activities that scare you somewhat - or a lot; can we not just enjoy the relative safety and warmth of the favourite armchair? Nana blanket on knees? When did we rebrand discomfort and stress as being something beneficial?

I can’t imagine that “taking yourself out of your comfort zone” was a thing that even existed, further back in history. Did early man, for example, take a look around him and wonder how he could complicate things for himself? Did he see the ribcage of the yak he’d just stripped bare and the embers of his dying fire and feel as though he needed an extra challenge? Did he feel the phantom throbbing of the arm he’d lost the day before to a sabretooth tiger during a tiff over at the waterhole and then turn to his wife and say,

“Do you know what, Uggle? I think that we should try and do some things that take us out of our comfort zones.’

Did the washerwomen of the Tudor period, skin chapped and burned, returning to their straw-strewn village hovels wearing damp dresses that smelled of ripe cheese, did they get in through the door/threadbare curtain made of sackcloth and think, ‘God I’d love to strip off and wade into that ice-cold muddy river down near the Inn.’

I can’t see it.

Had wild swimming been de rigeur in the time of castles and knights then they wouldn’t have had moats as a form of defence. Moats now would be completely pointless; half the cavalry would no doubt immediately strip off, seeing it as an excellent wild swimming opportunity. There’d be no fear in their eyes. They’d get to the other side and put their climbing wall skills to good use (another activity done to push boundaries, every other weekend), spidering their way up the battlements in their dryrobes™.

No! I am very happy in my comfort zone, thanks ever so much. I realise that leaving it is meant to be a personal betterment thing and that you can only learn and grow when you make difficult or brave or outlandish choices, but I question how beneficial it is to purposefully put yourself into a state of severe fright or shock.

It’s like this “facing your fears” thing. Granted, it must work for lots of people, there must be sound logic to it somewhere along the line, but I simply fail to see how immersing yourself in the very thing you’re scared of can possibly be a cure. I’m petrified, for instance, of one day looking out of a window in the dark and there suddenly being a face there. Right there, floating ghoulishly on the other side of the glass.

Now. I can tell you right this minute that if you tried to cure me of this fear by actually putting a face on the other side of the glass, one dark night, the following would happen: