How Often do You Leave Your Comfort Zone?

Definitely not enough. 

Although I’m quite social around my friends, I always find it pretty hard to talk in class or put my voice out there. Oftentimes, I feel an intangible barrier between myself and the teacher, preventing me from communicating my point. On other occasions, I second guess my thoughts and think about the possible consequences of saying something disrespectful or commenting with my ideas before they are fully fleshed out. Especially nowadays, I feel the conflict of wanting to participate in class discussions but also experiencing that intangible feeling seemingly preventing me from talking. 

I’m also horrible when it comes to trying new activities. I’ve been to amusement parks many times, yet I’ve only been on a roller coaster once in my life, despite there being no real barrier between me and trying the rides. I’ve definitely heard about the amazing fun that people have had on roller coasters, and the weird thing is, I’m not even scared of them. I just find myself uncomfortable trying to ride one, for reasons even I can’t explain. In amusement parks, I find myself walking around aimlessly sometimes, but still managing to have fun doing absolutely nothing. I also struggle with trying other activities, such as skating. In the past, I’ve been to Skateland a few times, but I don’t think I’ve ever actually skated there. I usually just stick to playing arcade games and the occasional game of laser tag. 

Over the summer, I attended an online summer camp taught the basics of AI and had some coding notebooks that you could explore and complete to get some basic machine learning to work. I didn’t get to work with anybody I knew, and the teachers were all graduate students from various universities. I was around people who I considered more than a level above me academically, and I found it difficult to speak up because I was unfamiliar with the teachers and my peers and I didn’t want to make a bad impression of myself and make the rest of the camp experience worse. (Although the camp experience might have been better if I spoke up more too.)

Yet my comfort zone sometimes shifts over a period of time as I get more accustomed to an action or event I was previously uncomfortable with. In the case of piano, I used to be extremely jittery during recitals and was really nervous before I ever even sat down to play. When I was younger, I once even forgot what piece I was playing! However, because these performances and recitals have become more of a habit, I’ve found myself much more willing and less nervous in these recitals and my comfort zone has definitely shifted out more in this respect. 

I’ve found a lot of my comfort zone revolves around things I can do and not worry about what I present to others, with piano performances being an exception, as it has basically become a routine to me. I consider myself as “thin skinned,” and I tend to get embarrassed pretty easily and get pretty uncomfortable quickly. In most new environments, I tend to stay in my comfort zone, keeping to myself unless I have a familiar option to stray towards. Even my parents make observations in these scenarios, telling me to be more open with my personality, but so far, I’ve mostly stayed put in my comfort zone.