The discussion was about being on Facebook, playing games and/or taking up a hobby like researching ones own genealogy; and how much of a waste of time it was or was not.
My friend said, “I just don’t do that stuff….It’s such a waste of time.” … and … “I, I … just can’t allow myself to do that. I just don’t have the time!”
I wasted no time with a retort. “You’re retired, you love to communicate, you text and you’re having a second awakening! Who told you that you can’t take up a hobby, communicate with friends from the past or play?”
I know for a fact that this friend is retired, frets, worries and texts. Could renewing an old talent, an old friendship, opening new avenues to communication, or playing games be any more a waste of time than worrying, fretting and texting? And, who said it was a waste of time? Is it not creative, informative and fun? Granted some of these games are like crack cocaine to some of us. All of these thoughts brought me to thoughts of the human psyche, and how we can fashion statements to ourselves and apply them, just to keep us in a self imprisoning comfort zone. I don’t think that we were originally (genetically) wired for comfort, but more probably we were wired for challenge and survival, and not necessarily in that order.
Is there anyone out there that doesn’t have a comfort zone in the most inhospitable places of their psyche? A place where, no matter how inconvenient, financially draining, painful or sad, a person can find more alleged comfort in that place than they would find making a change or a shift to a spot more encouraging, happy, spiritually uplifting and infinitely more affable and fitting. This is the place where we hide, locked in from everyone else in a place to cry, mourn, grieve, struggle and wallow in self pity. And yet, we seem to be happy there. How utterly uninspiring. Therapists call this a Comfort Zone. I call it my Briar Patch.
It doesn’t matter what our comfort zone/briar patch is made up of. It’s an excuse. It could be holding back from applying for the job that could be, putting off getting on a healthier way of life, putting off setting money aside for savings, keeping to yourself and never joining anything, not reconnecting with old friends or not taking up an old love such as art, reading or writing. It is still squandering all your time so that there is never any left for anything that would get us out of there. Whatever it is, we’re all sealed up in our own little world, closing our eyes to the possibilities and potentialities that are right there in front of us. If we don’t go “out there”, then we can’t be turned down, hurt or left out. No challenges for sure!
As I said before, virtually everyone has one of these Comfort Zones that we are in and out of. We are just not aware of the subtle change from being in the real world to snuggling in your own misery. We feel safe there. (And, I do like to refer to mine as my Briar Patch.) Hmmmm … Very odd indeed. Why do we find this place comfortable? It just doesn’t make any sense at all. The answer is as odd as the question itself. Fear … Fear of making a change, or taking a risk, that would change things. The genuine (but irrational) fear that if we take a step out of that “safe” place, that we might fail, or even worse, that we might succeed; and if we did happen to succeed, then possibly we might be expected to succeed again and again. Practice makes perfect, so it seems logical that we’d want to come on out of there and succeed until we get it right. But no. We use every measure of procrastination available to stay in our “comfort zone / briar patch”, never to be all we could be.
What if …… God forbid ….. we should step outside this little space we have confined ourselves to? What then would take place in our world? And, what if we should find that we hate it? What if we decide we like it? Are we so pig-headed that we just want to prove a point? Or, are we so insecure in our own abilities that we can’t believe for a second that we could actually enjoy success of one kind or another.
Let’s say we decide to be brave and come out of there and rock the boat, shake things up a bit! What would happen? Brer Bear and Brer Fox might certainly be after us. But, we have out run them before. We can do it again. And in the meantime, we are running towards something else … something like a goal. I have heard that you’re only a failure if you give up. Isn’t giving up just not trying? In hiding in that Comfort Zone, or Briar Patch, aren’t we then doomed to failure because the only thing we are trying to do is stay in there? It would be logical to assume that if we don’t come out of there, then we are setting ourselves up to fail, so we don’t have to take a chance.
COME OUT OF THERE THIS INSTANT! Come out and meet the challenges you are meant to meet. Come out of there and live a longer and happier life!
Well, I can say I am truly inspired by my own pep talk! That's why I'm still sitting here in my pajamas at my computer at 9:00 a.m. Actually .... I'm out of here!
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