Push, push, push. Expanding your comfort zone

I dare to interpret grandparent's spirit: the difference is not between "mundane" and "extraordinary" in the action per se, but in the context.

So, if you actually _live_ in a country where they speak $NOT_YOUR_LANGUAGE, trying to order food is a daily thing that would(?) expand your comfort zone.

If you are just passing by in a random country it's just a funny story ("remember that time we had to ask for food in $NOT_YOUR_LANGUAGE?!").

Of course, passing by a random country may be the norm for you :)

In a way, it's like saying: you need to be confident to pick up, and it's something you can learn by trying over and over again. On the other hand, you can also try a lot of approaches while drunk (= not normal/daily state), and the next morning you'll not feel much more confident.

I think it differs greatly from person to person what categories of things that affects you, though.

I'm like GP in that there are many mundane thing that are far more outside my comfort zone than "extraordinary things".

E.g. starting a social conversation with a stranger for any reason takes a lot for me. I also don't like making phone calls, and will invent excuses to myself to avoid doing them if I'm not careful. I'm aware of most of the things I try to avoid, and so keep it in check through conscious effort, but it's something I have to constantly work at.

But ordering food in a strange country without knowing the language, for example? That's fun

I went to Beijing a few years back, and one night our hosts didn't have time to entertain we asked at our hotel for a restaurant recommendation. They tried sending us to a downtown tourist trap, but we refused and asked for something local.

After much arguing (they did not like the idea of sending us walking down the road when we did not speak nor read Mandarin), we got a piece of paper with a carefully written name of a local restaurant that should be easy to find, and walked down the road holding it up to compare it to signs.

Nobody there spoke a word of English, and my Mandarin was limited to about 10 words from a phrase book, but we pointed and gesticulated and got a fantastic meal without any problem.

Like GP, to me if something falls in the "crazy (or not so crazy) adventure" category, it pretty much automatically overcomes my inhibitions. For example, I went to France on an exchange while at school and had no problems walking up to total strangers to ask for help in halting French, while at home I'd have worked hard to avoid having to ask anyone for help.

I wish I knew how to trigger this change at will.

Interesting that she notes that it seems harder for her as a woman to participate in rejection therapy -- indeed, gender roles are still so ingrained for many people. You could probably experience success as a male by simply asking women for their phone numbers every day until one refused you, but this approach would likely be more difficult for a woman to pull off.

The hard part is not making the company, but paying the lawyers and accountants to maintain it properly afterwards. It's like a tax by itself that reaches thousands/tens of thousands of dollars per year.

Honest question. If it would make your fiancé's family happy, would you claim allegiance to Hitler and condone his actions "in name only"?

Do you really think that it's okay to condone the subjugation or murder of all people that won't convert to Islam, and then say that you didn't really believe the words you said?

Claiming that you are a Muslim is saying that you support and agree with Islamic doctrine and everything that comes with it. I'm not here to argue about what Muslims believe, but you should understand what you are condoning and take it seriously.

When you are willing to say things that you don't believe, you make your words meaningless.

Graeme just put it better than I did. Thanks Graeme! ☺

For a more explicit relationship to HN, consider how similar this narrative is to the way that founders reflect on their startups. How they were confused and frightened about making so many choices that they didn't fully understand. This isn't about starting your own business, but it speaks to that aspect of entrepreneurship.

I actually think this is a perfect post for HackerNews, part of the learning that we get here is getting out of our comfort zone, discovering new things, and always learning. Thankfully, not every post is like this, but every once in a while, it exposes us to more diversity, which is great.

I am the one who post this on HN. I got this through Twitter.

I think it is a great post esp. when I am also the kind of person who likes to do new stuff, travel new place and keep pushing my boundary.

Thanks for sharing your experience.

The diving one scared me a bit, I just finished my certification 2 days ago for open water (18m). It seemed odd to me that you were at 40m on your third dive when basic certification (PADI) required 4 dives. Not sure what it's supposed to take for 40m, but I remember it requiring some special steps (safety stop) if you go that deep. Would you mind sharing a bit more about that particular experience?

You don't have to apologize, you're of course entitled to post anything you wish in your blog. I just really didn't understand it because I was looking for some "deep message". It's comforting to know that you did not, if fact, mean it it contain a lesson.

Yes! Thank you Guibog for an important point. I mentioned the quick and visible events, for the sake of story-telling, but the stuff you're talking about is deeper, more powerful, and harder to talk about.

I don't think it's unreasonable to ask for clarification if you don't understand something.

You know, there is a merit to balancing descriptions between technical and understandable to the uninformed. That doesn't mean every post has to explain what a monad is or the ideology behind NoSQL vs SQL, but you can't just assume everyone knows something, or even where to search for to figure it out. Dropping keywords and giving sources I think helps a lot towards this.

Maybe to eliben, this is all second nature, so he's never understood the point of such a post? Or perhaps it's completely foreign to him...

Meh, "Explain Like I'm 5 (eli5)" is a great idea, I think. Even better if you also give links to more professional explanations as well.

So to be ethical, everyone who's currently a citizen of singapore should emigrate and renounce their citizenship due to military service. To a country where there isn't military service? The likelihood of any sort of agressive or defensive military action by singapore is small.

LOL!

I suppose his point is: why look for happiness in a disruptive engagement?

If you're happy/content/satisfied with a vegetative state ... well, good for you. You've controlled your desires, an important aspect of remaining peaceful.

But if happiness ain't about "lying on the sofa" for you, you've got to face the truth: get off your arse and get disrupting like a gypsy!

But I really love that brilliant comment on Siver's blog:

"If you want to have something you've never had before, you're going to have to do something you haven't done before." Rev Barbara King

My point is that most aspiring rock stars or world travelers will only end up as junkies or bums. It's like the Klondike. Sivers clearly found a gold nugget whereas most will only find a couple of flakes (if they are lucky).

Sivers talks up all the exiting things he has done, but does not mention all of the work that he put in and all the luck and good fortune that he came across to come by so much wealth which in turn allowed him to be able to do such things.