The Comfort Zone

I’ve always had two superpowers. First, I can always tell when an avocado is perfectly ripe. I somehow always manage to pick the best ones. Considering how expensive avocados are, it’s a rather useful superpower.

The second one is invisibility.

I’ve always been invisible. Always been the one people forget, the one they don’t notice, the one standing quietly on the periphery. I haven’t really minded. When I was younger, it suited me well because I was incredibly shy. I always sat at the very back of the classroom and rarely raised my hand. I did everything I possibly could to avoid being noticed. I’ve always preferred listening to talking. When I talk, I’m only repeating things I already know – things I’ve already thought about. But when I listen, I get a glimpse into other people’s minds, I get to learn something new. The downside is that, because I don’t speak very often, I easily fade into the background. I become undistinguishable from the walls, another quiet figure at the edge of the room. But sometimes I do have important things to say. I just wish people would listen. But they don’t.

I want to be seen but not visible. I want to be heard but not audible. I want to matter but not take up space. I don’t want to have to fight for my place in the world I belong to. I want my existence to be as evident as the sun rising every morning.

The problem is that I have never liked attention. Having everyone’s eyes on me makes me deeply uncomfortable. As an adult, I have become more comfortable with taking up space, raising my voice, and standing my ground. Even so, there is still room for improvement. I still find it terribly uncomfortable to seek attention. Every time I mention my blog to someone, I almost cringe. It’s rather ironic. Why spend so much time writing and editing if I don’t want anyone to read what I’ve written? I have developed a somewhat stoic attitude toward attention. I don’t chase it. If it’s meant for me, it will find me. And if it doesn’t, that’s okay too. It won’t stop me from doing the things I love.

I had the same mindset as a child. I didn’t like singing in front of other people – only when I was by myself. When I started the music-focused program at the age of eleven, every year we had a big Christmas concert. The program was for students from fourth through ninth grade. The-final-year students were the ones hosting the concert, the ones presenting the songs, leading the show, and singing all the solos. But the first-year students also performed one song featuring solos. When our teacher announced that I was one of two students chosen to sing a solo part as a first-year student, I was completely shocked. My class had many talented singers, but I was never one of the students who stood out. At least not from my own point of view. My teacher, however, believed in me. She told me I was talented and that she was excited to watch me grow over the years in the program. In the end, I decided to trust her and perform the solo. I was eleven years old when I stood on stage and sang a solo in front of a large audience for the first time. It was a terrible experience. I hated every second of it and never wanted to do it again. I just wanted to sing by myself or as part of the choir. I loved singing in the choir because I could disappear into the back row and simply sing. My teacher never got to watch me grow; quite the opposite, I just disappeared more and more every year. I didn’t audition for our musicals or for the solo performances. I didn’t sing in front of other people. It was quite common for students in the music-focused program to gather in the hallways during the breaks and just jam and sing out loud. I was never one of them.

Then my final year arrived, and I surprised everyone by deciding to audition for one of the solo performances at the Christmas concert. I had decided to challenge myself – to step outside my comfort zone, which, for me, was the very back row of the choir. The big finale of the Christmas concert was going to be “You Raise Me Up”. After we auditioned, there were other students who came up to me and said, “I didn’t know you could sing…like that…”. We were also each allowed to choose which solo we hoped to get, and I was hoping for one of the solos in the big finale “You Raise Me Up”. And I got it. It’s one of those magical moments I’ll never forget. I was sitting on a table in the classroom, chatting with a teacher after class, when a classmate came running in and practically screamed at me that I had been given the final solo. At first, excitement bubbled inside me, but the moment I realized I would have to stand alone on stage in front of a big audience, the bubbles disappeared as quickly as they had appeared. Then I became angry with myself. What a stupid, terrible idea this had been. What had I got myself into? The closer the concert came, the more my anxiety grew. It wasn’t just the concert that fueled my anxiety. Just a week before the concert, I underwent ACL surgery. There were two caveats that followed the surgery. First, I felt terribly ill after the surgery and missed most of the rehearsals because I needed to rest. The teachers told me that if I couldn’t participate during the rehearsals, they would have to give the solo to someone else. My first thought was, “great, please free me from this burden”. But I didn’t want to take the easy way out, I had put myself in this situation because I wanted to challenge myself. I fought through the rehearsals despite the nausea. The second caveat was how I was going to walk on stage when I still needed my crutches. Would I even be able to walk onto the stage without my crutches?

The worst part of having the final solo is that you spend the whole concert trying to figure out ways of evading the situation you’ve put yourself in. You have too much time imagining everything that could possibly go wrong. If I take a fall, do I stay on the ground and fake my death? If I sing off-key, do I pretend like there is something wrong with the microphone? The self-hatred grows stronger with every passing second, and the empty spot in the back row of the choir with my name written on it looks more comfortable than ever. Meanwhile, the stage seems to grow bigger and bigger, and the thousands of eyes in the audience are like bolts of lightning striking me over and over again. I must make sure that the stupid voice inside my head, telling me to challenge myself, is put on permanent mute for the rest of my life. This is what happens when I listen to my brain instead of my heart: I spent the entire concert with a stomachache, my hands sweating and trembling. But I made it through. It wasn’t the best performance of my life, but it could have been much worse. Afterward, I was just relieved it was over. But more than anything, I was proud of myself for finding the courage to step outside my comfort zone and challenge myself.

One summer between semesters at university, I worked in a liquor store. Until then, I had never worked anywhere where I didn’t get along with everyone. But there was just something about this place that made me feel as if I didn’t belong there. This was a completely new experience for me. The boss was great. She felt more like a close friend than a boss and she was very easy to talk to. But there were three other women, one of whom was the deputy manager, that made my life miserable while I was working there. A few weeks into the summer, when the regular boss went on vacation and the deputy took over, the situation got worse and worse. I felt ignored and left out. Sometimes they wouldn’t even greet me. There was a group chat and whenever I posted something in it, I was the only one who got ignored. There was also a lot of picking on me and favoritism toward certain employees. I was new, so I watched how everyone else did things and followed their example. Yet whenever I did exactly the same thing as everyone else, I was reprimanded by the deputy manager. I felt as if there were special rules just for me. It felt as though she was constantly looking for faults in me, as if her primary assignment was to scrutinize me and find things to pick on. I started dreading going to work. I was afraid to make mistakes, to be ostracized. Once, she even scolded me in front of all my work colleagues. I was counting down the minutes until the workday was over.

One day I became sick at work. I developed a headache and started feeling exhausted. As my symptoms worsened, I went to the deputy manager and told her I was not feeling well. When I explained my symptoms, she gave a dismissive snort and said that she felt like that every day. I was too afraid to ask to go home early, so instead, I went to my work colleague and asked if I could take her spot as the cashier because I felt too weak to stock the shelves. By that point, I had started to develop a fever. She told me I should simply go home if I didn’t feel well and I explained to her that I had already spoken with the deputy. My colleague then went and spoke to the deputy and managed to convince her that it was the best idea to send me home. That evening, I texted the deputy to tell her that I was too sick to work the next day. She replied “Let’s hope we get a substitute.” Her message made me feel guilty for being sick, as though I had inconvenienced everyone else by getting sick. I had a fever for two days but on the third day, I felt pressured to go to work although I still wasn’t fully recovered. I barely made it through the entrance before I realized what a terrible mistake it had been to come to work. I was dehydrated, weak, and barely able to stand. I told the deputy that I had to go back home and rest. She then suggested that I take a pill and try to work. But then my other work colleague, the one who had convinced her to send me home the first day, stepped in and said that I should go home and rest. I was so unbelievably grateful for her support. I didn’t feel as though I had the authority to stand up for myself or make the decision that was best for me.

I had a stomachache every day I went to work. The way they treated me made me feel as if I wasn’t worthy of their kindness and friendship. They made me feel unlikeable and made me think there was something wrong with me. I felt as though I was trapped in a scene from Mean Girls. To cope with my misery, I decided to do two things. First, I told myself that I can’t control how other people choose to treat me: I can only take responsibility for my own actions and words. I can only set a good example and treat others how I would like to be treated myself. So, I greeted people, even when I didn’t get one back. Second, I made a list of all the things they did that made me feel belittled and humiliated. I told myself that one day I would look back on this as a valuable experience. I wanted to make the best of the situation, so I convinced myself that I could learn from it. One day, perhaps I’ll become a manager myself. If I do, I’ll know exactly how not to treat my employees. I continued working there after the summer for a few days a week while I was studying. But after a few months I was told there wasn’t any more work for me in this store. However, there was another liquor store in another town who needed help over the coming holiday season. When I wrote a farewell message in our group chat, thanking for my time and wishing everyone well in the future, no one answered, and only one person liked it. I had a feeling that there was work for me, they just didn’t want me there anymore. Although I was miserable at work, I didn’t want to leave for another workplace, a place where I didn’t know anyone. Where everything was going to be completely new for me. Even if some didn’t treat me well, I still knew what to expect. It felt terribly scary to come to a place where I had no idea what awaited me.

It turned out to be better than I had ever imagined. On my very first day at my new workplace, I realized just how bad it had been at the other place. The difference was like night and day. The boss was wonderful, everyone was kind, and for the first time in a long time, I felt included . They were making jokes with me, inviting me into conversations, and they were genuinely interested in what I had to say. No one reproached me. If I did something wrong, they gladly showed me how to do it correctly and helped me improve. It was a completely different work environment. Instead of counting down the seconds until the workday was finally over, I was longing to get to work to spend time with my work colleagues. I worked there for five months until they had no more work for me. But on my last week, another store in a town a bit farther away suddenly needed extra staff because one of their colleagues had become sick. I had just graduated from law school and it was a perfect situation to continue working in the liquor store while I was trying to get a traineeship at the EU. I was once again faced with the challenge of changing workplace, this time to a much bigger one, more advanced equipment, more work colleagues. However, this time it didn’t feel challenging at all. It wasn’t the same feeling as I had had at the previous change. This time, I had a positive experience to look back on. Because my previous move had turned out so well, I expected this one to be good too.

And it became even better than I had expected. I didn’t think it was possible, but the next store was even better. The work colleagues were amazing, and so was the boss.. It was funnier to work in a bigger store with more customers and more stocks. I worked there for two months and when I left, I was overwhelmed with love and hugs. They were genuinely sad to see me go. When I wrote my farewell message in our group chat, almost everyone replied, liked the message, and wished me well. After my previous humiliating experience, it meant a lot to me. It wasn’t the farewell messages themselves that mattered. It was what they represented and how they made me feel. They reminded me that there had never been anything fundamentally wrong with me. I had simply been in the wrong environment, where I wasn’t appreciated.

Throughout my early twenties, I struggled with severe social anxiety. People terrified me and I was constantly afraid of getting hurt. Looking back, I have so many absurd stories to tell about this period of my life. I was studying German at university, but I never attended class. However, I had decided to attend the first class of the semester because I thought I might receive some useful information. The train was late, so I ended up missing my connection, which meant that I arrived late for class. When I reached the classroom, everyone was already inside and the doors were closed. I didn’t dare to go inside. Just the thought of everyone staring at me caused me too much distress, but I didn’t go all that way to university to not get something out of it. I stood in the hallway with my ear pressed against the classroom door, listening to the lecture from outside.

Once, while I was on the train, and I really needed to use the restroom, but I was too frightened to stand up and have everyone look at me, I sat there and suffered in silence. It felt like my bladder was going to explode, yet the fear of drawing attention to myself outweighed the physical pain.

One thing I really loathed was phone calls. I never answered phone calls. I went without a credit card for a few months because I was too afraid to pick up the phone and call the bank. In the end, I decided that perhaps it was easier to just go to the bank and talk to them. While I was sitting there, waiting for my turn, my hands were shaking and my breathing was shallow. I had written down what I was going to say and rehearsed it in my head over and over again until it was my turn.

Social anxiety is not something to take lightly. It isolates you and prevents you from living your life to the fullest. How do you avoid people when there are people everywhere? One day I came to the realization that I can’t live like this forever. I couldn’t keep going through life afraid to exist in the world. I couldn’t let fear rule my life. But how do you rebuild your confidence after years of painful experiences? How do you take up space and believe in yourself? I was wondering how I was going to make it through law school if I let my social anxiety stand in my way, plus, I also kept reminding myself that life is far more enjoyable when you believe in yourself.

The final exam in my first law school course was divided into two parts. First, we had a case seminar. The case was divided into different tasks, and each group was tasked with giving an oral presentation and answering the questions assigned to them. After each group had presented its answers, there was supposed to be a group discussion. To get participation points, every student had to take part in a group discussion at least once. The presentation itself wasn’t the problem; it was the group discussion part that I struggled with. To voluntarily speak up in front of everyone and speak out of turn. When most of the groups had done their presentation, I still hadn’t participated in a group discussion. I was sitting there in front of the laptop, trying to gather courage to say something. At that point, I would have preferred to wrestle a bear rather than speak in front of the whole class. Most of all, I wanted to throw the laptop out through the window and never log in ever again. There was a tiny voice inside my head telling me to just do it. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t pass the course, and then I would have to restudy the whole course. In the end, I just did it. I don’t even know whether words came out of my mouth or whether they were just sounds. I blacked out a little. There was a tiny pause, but then the discussion continued and I had survived what I thought would kill me. I did get my participation points, passed the course – and every course that followed. Looking back, I realize I had quite a remarkable journey through law school. I went from being close to fainting by just the thought of speaking in front of people, to the last oral presentation I did, where I spoke confidently and with composure, maintained eye contact with the audience and even cracked a joke now and then.

I often think about that first case seminar, and how life-changing the decision to participate turned out to be. Sometimes I wonder how different my life might have been if I hadn’t found the courage to step outside my comfort zone and speak in front of everyone. And how it made me grow. The very thing I once believed would destroy me doesn’t even challenge me today.

Sometimes I find myself searching for people’s answers to one of humanity’s oldest questions:

What is the meaning of life?

Since the answer is deeply subjective, there are billions of possible answers. Some of my favorites are:

The meaning of life is to give life meaning.

The meaning of life is to reproduce.

The meaning of life is to be alive.

The ultimate meaning of life is the absence of it.

But perhaps life has both a subjective and an objective meaning?

All living things share one feature: It never stands still, it grows and develops. A seed becomes a tree, a fertilized egg becomes an adult human. Every living organism grows at some point in its life cycle. Some may argue that most mammals stop growing after reaching adulthood, while other organisms continue growing. But what if the definition of “growth” is not restricted to physical size. Humans continue to grow neurologically, emotionally, and intellectually. Our bones are rebuilt and our cells are replaced. Although we are not getting taller, we are still dynamic, changing organisms. A tree may stop getting taller, but it still grows new leaves, and new roots. The point I am trying to make is that, living things are not static objects – they are ongoing processes.

Perhaps what defines life is not movement itself, but the capacity for growth and change. Living things change. They adapt. They change. They grow. Perhaps the objective meaning of life is to simply grow?

And where do you grow?

Outside the comfort zone?

The Oxford Dictionary defines a comfort zone as “a place or situation in which you feel safe or comfortable.” Collins describes it as a situation in which a person feels secure, comfortable, or in control. Cambridge adds another important element: a comfort zone is a place where your abilities and determination are not being tested.

In other words, within your comfort zone, you know what to expect. There is little perceived risk, and you are rarely pushed beyond your current abilities.

Psychologists sometimes distinguish between three zones: the comfort zone, the growth zone, and the panic zone. In the growth zone, you are challenged, but the challenge remains manageable. In the panic zone, anxiety becomes so overwhelming that learning and performance suffer.

Sometimes you meet people who possess a quiet, fundamental trust that, no matter what happens, everything will be okay. It’s almost as though they’ve realized that the only thing truly worth fearing is fear itself. I want to make it unequivocally clear that I am describing fear and not danger. Danger is in the outer world; fear is in the inner world. These people believe that being afraid is a choice, and since being afraid is a choice, they choose not to worry or to be afraid. They choose not to be afraid of the unknown, of the uncertainty of life. Instead, they embrace it. They are constantly in the comfort zone, they don’t step out or in it, they never leave. Yet, they are still growing. For these people, growth no longer feels like leaving their comfort zone. Growth has become their comfort zone.

Is it possible to be in both the comfort zone and the growth zone simultaneously?

My whole life has been a never ending search for a place where I can rest and feel safe. It has felt as though I have been forced into the growth zone while desperately searching for somewhere to feel safe. One day I came across two quotes that made me reflect over my search:

“When the roots are deep there is no reason to fear the wind.”

– African proverb

“An entire sea of water can’t sink a ship unless it gets inside the ship.”

– Attributed to Goi Nasu

Reading them made me wonder: What if my roots aren’t deep enough? What if my ship is too hollow? What if the place that I am searching for cannot be found in the outer world? Only in the world within me? The reason why I cannot find it is because I am searching for it in people, in places, workplaces, handball courts, in routines and daily habits. But the comfort zone I am searching for can only be built within myself. It is built upon self-trust and self-belief. Once it exists within me, I can feel safe wherever I go, wherever I am, and whoever I’m with. Then my mind becomes my comfort zone. Its existence is not contingent upon life’s unpredictability. Even if you find yourself in a situation where you do not know what to expect, it doesn’t mean that you are not in control. You are in control of yourself; you know what you can expect from yourself.  

Perhaps the safest place in the world is a mind that trusts itself. When you have created the comfort zone within you, you are always safe, but you are also growing. And when you trust yourself, you no longer have to fear the unknown.