Comfortable Uncomfortable

Sometimes in life, you have to step away from your world.  You have to back off from what you are doing, take a deep breath and recharge your batteries before you continue on.   For me when the calendar page turned to August, I knew that meant that I was dangerously close to doing something that I hoped would be a defining part of this year and this journey but I needed to do something before I set off on my adventure.  I needed to get comfortable before I could be uncomfortable.

Ok that may be a bit confusing but for the last couple of weeks; I stepped away from this blog and this idea of changing and focused on enjoying the things that I am used to.  I spent time with family and friends.  I reconnected with people I hadn’t seen in a while.  I did some reading, played around with my camera, caught up on some television shows and movies, and I even got in some summer beach time.  Overall, I did the things that make me happy and the things that make me feel comfortable without trying to make them different or more exciting.  In two weeks, I head to New Zealand for my trip with Habitat for Humanity and I know that I will be completely out of my element but it will force me to be uncomfortable. 

I’ve said it before, for a while I’ve felt like I was just going through the motions and not really living.  Life just became a little too comfortable.  By pushing myself, seeking out adventure, and trying to become more the person I wanted to be, I hoped to jump out of my safety zone and have more excitement in my world.  The past few weeks have made me see that the things in my life that are comfortable will always be there, no matter how much you try to change and that’s not always a bad thing.  Comfortable is good.  It’s stable.  It’s dependable.  The things in my life that are “comfortable” don’t necessary need to be eliminated but what I really need to do is find a nice balance between the comfortable and the uncomfortable.  So I set out to just do the things that I loved no matter how mundane or lackluster they might be and as I enjoyed the comforts of my life, I was able to appreciate them more than I might have in the past because I still had the adventures in the unknown that lie ahead of me to look forward to. 

“Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance, order, rhythm and harmony.” – Thomas Merton