Comfort Zone

They say that "Knowledge" empowers. So I work everyday on getting one step closer to what I aspire, wish and dream about, by learning more. However I feel that the more I learn the more I’m overwhelming myself and the further away I'm getting. I come to discover with that "Knowledge" there's always more to do and more to learn. I hate to admit it, but also it makes me feel there’s a right way of doing things, not a random way of experimenting. That right way, though requires more efforts, boosts your self confidence to do it again and again without doubting your system.

I have decided to give writing a shot. I don’t know what I’m going to be writing about, I’m not a professional writer and English is my second language. So I guess I will write every week for the next 52 weeks about a different experience or feeling. I will expand on that and be as truthful, transparent and authentic as I can be, then send it out there to the world. Maybe someone somewhere will connect to it, after all, feelings are universal even though experiences vary.

Why do I write? I decided to write a blog once a week after I watched the movie "Julie and Julia" and also because of the encourageing responses for my annual email that I send out to all of my friends and family. So my commitment is to write about one thing every week, religiously. It’s my goal for 2010

So starting with this one as the first weekly blog, I wanted to call it comfort zone for a reason. When I reflect on my past, I notice that every time I move forward a step or two, every time I experience a divine experience, it always involves initially some resistance, hesitation, and coming up with all excuses that I should not do it. However I end up pushing myself out of my comfort zone, and in most cases I end up having the time of my life. I like to push people too, yes I have been called pushy. After my trip to London for a week, I find myself encouraging people to travel alone and explore the world without waiting for someone to travel with them. Of course travelling with company is fun, but sometimes your vacation schedule doesn’t match those you want to travel with. Do you sit down and wait? I hear all kind of objections to it, I ask “well how do you know it’s not for you if you never tried it?” and most people say, I simply know because I don’t like to travel alone, I don’t enjoy it. Yup, that used to be my answer too. London ended up as one of the most fun trips I have ever had.

My Comfort Zone would have kept me where I was 10 years ago, I left my hometown with so many doubts, to a country that I knew nothing about. It would have kept me at my first job as a bus boy, then a stuck boy, a carpet cleaner, a painter, a teller, a personal banker, a barista, a banking center manager. It would have kept me from launching my own business in teaching one on one my native tongue. And you do know why? Because comfort zone is cozy, it’s warm, it’s easy on the eyes, also on the ears. It’s familiar, it’s comfortable. And one thing for sure, “it will keep you where you are”. I don’t want to stay where I am, as much as I love routine and discipline, I like to move, not necessarily up, but to move in a different direction. Life is too short to stay at one place (and I don’t mean one place as in one apartment or city, I mean one place as in not moving on and learning and exploring more) so this is my new direction, writing