Maulana Wahiduddin Khan | Speaking Tree Weekly Blog | Sep 7, 2020
One’s comfort zone is a situation in which one feels safe or at ease. This phenomenon is common. Almost every person experience this at some time or the other. But a comfort zone is not based on reality. It is only a psychological state which may be interpreted as a comfort zone.
For example, before marriage, people live with their biological relatives. These gradually become comfort zones for them. But, after marriage, they must live in a relationship arising outside of blood ties. This becomes, unconsciously if not consciously, a non-comfort zone for both. But there is no real reason for this to be so, for it is only the perception from the psychological point of view. If the man and woman understand this fact, they will regard their situation as an issue of management and not of reaction.
The same is true of companies. Often when employees stay in one place over a long period of time, their place of work becomes their comfort zone and they do not feel inclined to move out of it. But again, this is purely a psychological state, and there is no real reason for them to have this feeling.
Your comfort zone may seem comfortable to you, but it is only a result of your way of thinking. If you change your conditioned thinking, every ‘zone’ will become a comfort zone for you. The so-called comfort zone is a challenge-free zone. Within it, apparently there is peace, but because of the absence of challenges, you cease to have new experiences. Thus, you are unable to develop intellectually or engage in creative thinking. There is the danger in this situation of your becoming a victim of intellectual dwarfism.
On the contrary, if you give no importance to being in a comfort zone and are prepared to face any new zone, the result will be that you will have new experiences every time and you will have to face different challenges at every turn. By facing these new situations, you will develop the ability to think creatively.
A comfort zone may have everything but staying in it cannot stimulate intellectual development. Living in a comfort zone does not give you the ability to face challenges. A comfort zone is only a beautiful name for a non-creative zone.
The Scottish writer Samuel Smiles has said in his book Self- Help: It is not ease but effort, not facility but difficulty that makes man.
Difficulties make a person energetic. Where there is no difficulty, a person gradually ends up becoming dull.
It is not good, however, to jump out of your comfort zone simply out of ambition. This may prove to be a misadventure. But if circumstances require a change, do not be reluctant to accept it. Rather, admit it as a circumstantial gift. Facing challenges with courage and wisdom inevitably pays off.
A comfort zone is a self-created world. You create this world under the influence of your emotions and not by applying your rational faculty. It is a fact that all the successes of history are the outcome not of emotion but of reason.