I think it was in a Taleb book that I read that writing was born because of accounting. In my case, as I have chronicled here earlier (2010, 2017), my account books pretty much tell the story of our life. Towards the end of the second post, I wrote “the days of our lives have found a rhythm, a familiarity….Wild zigzags giving way to smooth curves and then straight lines.” This is because our routines, and therefore, expenses were predictable. The last few months have obviously meant a few changes, but the ballpark is the same. This stability has also meant that the usage of xls/sheets have increased at the expense of the book. I suspect this change is permanent, and it does make me sad.
What it has also made me think about is the subject of the “comfort zone”. My work domain is marketing, and there’s no way I am getting into any comfort zone there. But for all practical purposes, in my personal life, my perception is that I have hit a comfort zone. Many of my posts in the Flawsophy section have been about my own approach on living one’s life – happiness, success, signalling, the idea of freedom in daily life – and learnings and changes. I think it’ll show that I have a fair idea of our needs and wants, what it takes to get there, and a plan. It has helped that we have avoided lifestyle creep quite a bit, and kids completely, and disproportionate spends are on things we actually enjoy. Self image on that last bit was a challenge until recently, but I think that’s over now. None of these are things that happened overnight, and obviously a work in progress but we’re comfortable with where we are, and where we want to be.
A recent chat with a new acquaintance surfaced this subject. Or rather, I navigated towards this because of a couple of reasons – one, it was a topical, front-of-the-mind subject, and two, the person I was chatting with had deep experience in mentoring people and teams. He enjoys running, and it gives him a mechanism to continuously challenge himself and get out of his comfort zone. My interests, as the About page would tell you, are reading, eating, and travel. The last two provide me experiences beyond the routine, and in some sense out of the comfort zone. That sleigh ride that D conned me into in Tromso was most definitely that – physically and psychologically! But books to me are an exploration, and reading x number of books a year, or simply reading those that signal smartness on the gram is not something I’d like to do. He did have a good suggestion though – deliberately pick books that are out of my regular “zone”. This, I can vouch for, because D’s pick in the book purchase ritual always take me outside it.
The question of whether I was in a comfort zone still remained though. A part of it was probably because of FOMO – after all it is said that growth, and life itself are outside it. Another part is that since I am not the sports/adventure sort, tangible milestones are scarce. And because reading books and exploring new perspectives is now so deeply ingrained, I probably don’t even consider that expansion as outside my comfort zone. It’s linear growth, if at all. It could be argued that the perception of “am I in a comfort zone” itself is a positive, but tangible movements help. There are at least two directions that have come to mind. The first, conquering fear. I think developing an abundance mindset will move me in that direction. The second, translating cognitive and emotional empathy into compassionate empathy. Doing, not thinking, writing, talking. Not by coincidence, the two are related. I don’t know if that amounts to moving out of the comfort zone, but it’s definitely how I would like my life to move forward!
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