Initiating Discomfort and Adventure Within Your Daily Comfort Zone

In the last post I wrote over a month ago, I talked about breaking out of our comfort zones and shared some of the extreme measures my family and I have taken to ensure this is a consistent part of our lives. I talked about the recent move we made across the country to return to San Francisco, the city I grew up in. Now that we are settled in and I have a moment to breathe, I want to follow up with some thoughts I’ve had through this experience.

Since our arrival in San Francisco we have been reminded daily why we love this city as much as we do. Although I realize the city life is not for everyone, it is most definitely my preference. My children, who have only visited but never lived here before, appear to be discovering their own delights in what the city has to offer, which in turn increases the joy and satisfaction of my wife and myself. Our children grew up in Bay Area suburbs for the most part, and they are only now beginning to understand why their parents have been longing to return to the city by the bay.

This city breathes. It is alive. It is full of culture and creativity and inspiration and challenge. It is diverse in every possible way.

We love it. It is an adventure within itself.

It has been suggested that our return to San Francisco is actually a return to our comfort zone, and I have to agree that in many ways it could be. I grew up here, we lived here the first three years of our marriage, and we visited regularly during our years in the suburbs. My wife and I both know which buses will get us where, we know how to drive to most places in and around the city, and we have already visited some of our old favorites in the few weeks since our return. It is a comfort zone in the sense that when we set foot in this city, we feel home.

So how does someone who is pursuing a breaking of boundaries and a shattering of comfort zones deal with the potential of the day to day routine? We can’t just pick up and move across the country every day, or make radical changes every time that we identify a place of comfort and familiarity. These are extreme reactions and solutions to extreme realizations. How does one become a catalyst for adventure in their own daily routine in order to continue growing and changing and becoming everything that we desire to be?

My wife and I are attempting to answer these questions. We never want to settle. We never want to fall into a rut. We have no desire to allow our faces to transfigure into the same empty, sometimes sad expressions that populate the rush hour commute.

But how?

I think it starts with opening our eyes. There is life around us, but we have to begin to see it if we are ever going to have a chance to experience it. There is inspiration and possibility in the mundane as well as the amazing. In the weekly trip to the Laundromat down the street, or the walk to the local grocery store, or the bus ride downtown, or whatever your case may be.

There is life in the people we encounter. In the stories they carry that no one has cared enough to express interest in or listen to. In the wealth of history and culture and uniqueness that each individual intrinsically possesses. In their eyes you can see it, yet our society has conditioned us to never go there. To not talk to strangers. To live in fear of the unknown and stay within our safe little comfort space.

There is life in our surroundings. This city is (as many other cities are) rich with museums, parks, restaurants and all the other fare that we typically find ourselves seeking out as a break from the norm. This is great and makes the challenge of finding adventure more appealing and accessible. But what about those “not-so-typical” adventures that pass us by each day in our blindness to them?

An adventure is an activity that is perceived to involve risky, dangerous or exciting experiences. I believe life is supposed to be just that, yet so many are content to play it safe and miss out on even the most minute experiences that could possibly change their lives forever.

We may look at our daily routines and our comfort zones and quickly dismiss the thought that they possess any type of potential for adventure. I think the reality is that every second is ripe with the possibility of discovery, and it is each person’s challenge to dive in and become a catalyst for the birth of a moment’s fullness. Or they can choose to check out and just go along for the ride, avoiding risk, danger or excitement.

For me, the latter sounds far too boring. I can’t imagine living my life without the awareness of each moment’s possibilities and potential, even though I am sure I manage to initiate discomfort within my comfort zone far less often than I would like to think. Still, my eyes are open to the fact that I don’t do it as often as I want to, and I believe that’s the beginning of change.

What are the daily routines you find yourself enslaved by? What are the rituals that have taken over and seem to have removed the reigns from your hands? What are the times each day that you have unconsciously decided just have to be that way and will never change?

Let’s open our eyes to these seemingly mundane things, and begin to identify and target them as the next boundary to be broken. The adventure that lies beyond their walls could be risky, dangerous and possibly even exciting. I think that’s something worth exploring. Don’t you?