Great things never came from comfort zones
durmonski.com
durmonski.com
There are eons' worth of literature on "how to be happy" and addressing the question of "what is the good life?" Other than applying a term that didn't exist when most of it was written, I don't see anything here that's relevant to that.
Also, who is behind this conspiracy of essays written with one-sentence paragraphs? I'd seriously like to know where this style being taught. It reminds me of "ad copy," which does empirically appear to work for persuading people to consume certain products but for reason I've never understood.
Checking the general state of education and mental health in our society, I'm not sure that the current crop of psychologists and educational professionals are really all that worth listening to. A fair comparison might be that of listening to the advice of doctors in the mid-19th century on the treatment of infectious diseases - I think they're missing something fundamental, at least as judged by outcomes.
As far as learning, I think there's been a degradation of the average person's attention span, brought on by technological effects related to social and other media trends. How long does it take to absorb the meaning in a tweet? How about in a TikTok video (shorter on average than a Youtube video, apparently)? Anything longer and there's a tendency for the eyes to glaze over, the mind to start wandering, as boredom sets in...
A traditional approach to learning might involve 15 minutes of constant full concentration on a single subject, followed by several minutes of coming up for air, and then repeat that three more times, that's say 75 minutes of effort. Brutal work for the attention-span-challenged, certainly, but that's the most efficient way to learn new material. However, if you've trained yourself to have a longer attention span, this can be done in a state of mind rather like 'a Comfort Zone'.
The study was just your usual aptitude test for kids with math questions among other things. At the end there was also a survey. Sure enough, western kids tended to have lower math scores than Asian kids. Apparently the survey was very long and not every kid finished it. Here's the kicker: high math scores were very highly correlated with completing the survey.
It's hard to draw any concrete conclusions from that, but it seems that the "Asians are good at math" trope might really just be "Asians can sit down and focus". So it definitely seems that it's possible to have a culture either nurture or hinder its inhabitants ability to focus for long periods of time.
(this is where I heard about this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcMKLwVlpJk very interesting talk)
I would personally characterize that perspective as a culture invested in prioritizing health, social trajectory, and professional accomplishment.
That’s obviously a lot of us here. But there a lot of communities and cultures who haven’t jumped on that train and don’t intend to.
> The comfort zone is a place where an individual uses a limited set of familiar behaviors to deliver familiar results. He is strictly focused on routines that are risk-free which stalls his progress in life.
Work in the family business, raise some kids to do the same, enjoy your holidays and your vices, take care of your elders and kids — is a lifestyle that huge swaths of the world find deeply satisfying.
And while there’s incredibly hard work in fixing a tractor or tending to a parent who’s declining, these are not outside the realm of “familiar behaviors producing familiar results”.
The comfort zone may not be for everyone, but can we acknowledge that it seems to work great for some?
Maybe the better thing to reflect on which lifestyle suits you, rather than thinking that one lifestyle is scientifically better and that you should pressure yourself to embrace it.
The article is a bad over-extension of this, and misses the mark. It places a ridiculous value judgement where none is warranted.
My approach is a little different here. It's to seek out instances where you are avoiding discomfort within the lifestyle that you've chosen. Your examples are perfect. A lot of people will not fix their tractor, because they don't trust themselves with anything mechanical. For many people, having the courage to disassemble their PTO is a major stumbling block, and they never gain the self-confidence to tackle these sorts of things unless they take that first uncomfortable step. Farmers aren't born with know-how.
When taking care of your declining parent, you might start reflecting on years of lost quality time because of something left unaddressed between the two of you. Do you maintain a superficial relationship with your father until he dies, hoping that going through the motions is communication enough? Suppose you're not on speaking terms at all, and you hear he's unwell. Do you pick up the phone and call him after 10 years of silence? Are you willing to have one uncomfortable conversation, or will you maintain the status quo?
This is what the comfort zone is really about. It's growth in any context.
Yet I keep seeing this particular flavor of self-improvement being shared and discussed in places with decent standards of discourse like it was something valid. Is there something I'm just not getting?
It's a knife's edge that we should shame no one for picking the side of "comfort". There is wisdom there.
The happiest people I know in life fill their lives with very simple things that make them happy on a daily basis. All those "pain = gain" types seem to be the ones that write self help books, but I've don't know them personally so my jury is out on whether they are as happy and fulfilled as they market their ideas well to sell to you.
I'm a recovering pain=gain type. It's difficult to break free from. Even I read this article excited at first.
Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder Book by Nassim Nicholas Taleb