I managed to pick up a decent-sized blister while on a six-mile ruck recently. Not complaining, but it got me thinking about something other than the fact that I was about a mile and a half from home and had accidentally left both my cell phone and boo-boo kit behind. Are we getting too comfortable? Is this comfort really good for us?

It’s something that’s been on my mind for a while. We live in a world where nearly every sort of discomfort which we might endure is, somehow, mitigated. Given, there are many discomforts still without remedy (or, whose remedies have no positive effect, but plenty of negative effects, especially on some people). However, most ordinary discomforts are practically non-issues in the modern world. Cold is solved by a heater, heat by an air conditioner. Various conveniences have resulted in a kind of boredom which, itself, is resolved (after a fashion) by filling our environment with nearly constant noise.

See, a blister is a minor discomfort with simple solutions like mole-skin or a band-aid. It’s (hypothetically) easily prevented by wearing a sock liner, assuming they are made in your size, or pre-padding fiction zones (again using mole-skin or a band-aid). Yes, they hurt…sucks to keep walking with one, but they’re hardly something world-ending. A blister is also a discomfort that is very easily bearable compared to many others.

Consider the example of boredom mentioned earlier. It’s easy to pass this off with a quiche adage like, “boredom comes from a boring mind,” but I don’t really find this to be true. For almost the entirety of human history, we’ve had our days filled with tasks ranging from the menial to the important. Without these things, we begin to have voids during which there are long periods of “nothing to do.” This, itself, creates a sense of unease, a feeling like you should be doing something no matter how nebulous or unidentifiable that “something” might be.

So, how do we end up solving that? Well, we tend to fill it with noise. We turn on a television, doom-scroll social media, and whatnot. We fill the silence…the void which might otherwise (without modern convenience) be filled with something to do. One of the greatest ironies of modern gaming, in fact, is that many of the most popular games today are oriented around filling those long stretches of unoccupied time with tasks which are, factually, little different from a pre-convenience history. Case in point, we have Minecraft, where endless hours are dedicated to collecting resources and building grand structures with the resources collected. In essence, we took a task-filled daily grind and turned it into a game.

What’s the point here, though? Well…even in boredom, we want to stay inside our comfort zone, even if its self-determined boundaries are making us miserable in other ways. We want to mitigate the feeling of unease (boredom) while simultaneously staying in a sort of gilded cage which our comfort zone introduces because it is the set of things which we know and understand well and (usually) which does not introduce physical discomfort into the mix. The most important part is that staying in your comfort zone doesn’t require venturing into the unknown or facing the unfamiliar, even if it’s making you miserable. You can sit there, do nothing, and fill the void with noise, trying to drown out the voice screaming at you that you should be doing something.

I use boredom as an example because it’s probably the most debilitating comfort zone I see people trapped in. It doesn’t require movement, action, or any sort of physical discomfort. Any comfort zone, however, can easily become a trap for both the body and mind. When one focuses solely on a single academic specialty with no exploration or debate, they form a comfort zone…in this case, a sort of bubble of expertise quite difference from genuine expertise. When one focuses solely on a single aspect of physical fitness (e.g. just cardio or just strength), one forms a different comfort zone. Of course, we will always seek to hide these comfort zones to protect our egos. The academic who has fallen into a comfort zone will hide behind the title of “expert” while knowing little outside of their chosen, narrow field. The athlete trapped in a comfort zone will claim that their way is the “best” and they “don’t need” to do anything else, sometimes going as far as pointing to over-specialization when there is no such risk at their level.

Comfort zones exist everywhere, and there is nothing, per se, wrong with being in a comfort zone. If you’ve spent enough time and effort learning what you are good at, then you will find yourself in a comfort zone. What is being addressed here is when the comfort zone becomes a trap, especially to the point of being detrimental to individual health and well-being. Yes, it is okay for someone who has learned to excel within a comfort zone of expertise informed, in part, by a surrounding field. Put another way, one is not limiting or harming oneself by becoming an expert in antenna design by being informed on matters ranging from mathematics, basic electronics, and electrical theory to electromagnetism and field theory, especially in the RF spectrum. One has a problem, however, when one has simply developed expertise in existing antenna designs while being uninformed about the surrounding theory which makes them work. The former is a natural comfort zone developed over time. The latter is an unnatural comfort zone built in order to avoid studying other material which might be deemed “too hard” or “uninteresting.”

In either case, we must be willing to step outside of our comfort zones. This may require setting aside one’s ego. No, you’re not the greatest [insert here] ever, you’re just some guy. Nothing, and I mean nothing says that an engineer cannot study (or enjoy) history, that an athlete may not also be a skilled artist, or that a weightlifter cannot also be a runner.

Will everyone be good at everything? No, absolutely not…the very notion that everyone will have the same limitations or skill-sets is laughable. We will all have our limits, but we don’t know what they are without testing our boundaries. How do you know whether or not you’ll be a good runner unless you start running? How do you know your strength unless you push its boundaries? How do you know that you can’t draw if you don’t make the effort to try? This is what requires stepping out of your comfort zone: discovering what you are capable of.

And, no, I do not mean trying once and giving up if you fail or are not an instant expert overnight. I mean genuinely taking the time to explore a skill outside of your wheelhouse. Of course, there will be things that you do not enjoy as much as you thought you might. There will be things that you are too slow to develop at and, therefore, decide that you would much rather dedicate your limited time and energy to a more desirable or efficient pursuit. As you should…

Knowing your limits does not mean to confine yourself to a box. It means that you should first test and explore your limits so that you may discover what those limitations are. Don’t decide what they are before you try.

And, that includes dealing with boredom. In a way, even that misery is a comfort zone. The discomfort becomes paradoxically comfortable because (1) we can distract ourselves by filling it with noise, and (2) resolving it requires effort which is perceived as being a source of greater discomfort than the boredom.

So, what should one do about these comfort zones, especially the ones which are either limiting or are, themselves, a source of their own discomfort?

Keep in mind, we’ve been exposed to every form of discomfort imaginable throughout history. To some extent, we are made to experience that discomfort in one way or another, maybe even to find enjoyment in it. Experiencing discomfort, in turn, makes us more resilient to it, but only if we learn to embrace it while controlling the circumstances of exposure. Staying within our comfort zone encourages us to restrict our horizons and reject discovering what we are capable of. We should be expanding our horizons, though, not restricting them. Doing so can come in many forms:

• One can give an honest try at learning a new skill. This can run the gamut from an artistic skill (e.g. drawing or painting) to the practical (e.g. carpentry or welding) to a technical one (e.g. HAM radio or computer programming). It doesn’t matter.
• One can explore new topics through reading. I think this is always a good thing to do. Over time, we’ve built up a wealth of knowledge that is available to us, so why not take advantage of that?
• One can expand one’s workout routines to include both cardio and lifting weights. Rucking is a great exercise as well. Introducing a martial art of some kind is good for both conditioning and training coordination, self control, and self-discipline.
• One can even develop new hobbies, either indoor or outdoor, which have positive impacts on the body and mind.

That’s only a couple of examples I can think of off the top of my head. All of this requires stepping outside of one’s comfort zone. It requires embracing discomfort, especially initially, while seeking self-improvement through mental and physical effort. Despite a tough beginning and difficult challenges, it’s worth it.

And, here’s the best part about self-improvement through embracing discomfort: nobody can really stop you. You don’t need to wait for permission. You don’t need anyone else to tell you what you can and cannot do. Instead, you can simply start to learn and do things, to discover what you are actually capable of and what your limits are. It’s an opportunity to discover yourself in the rawest, truest sense.