Category: Junior Literary

Comfort zones, everyone has one. You know, that place that’s just warm and fuzzy and like home- the feeling is hard to beat. The problem that we all face, at one time or another in our lives, is that you will not always have the comfort of your comfort zone. At this very moment, my comfort zone is being threatened. For our week’s assignment, we were instructed to write a personal narrative. Something deep and heartfelt that makes you feel things when you’re writing it. One of the only problems with this is that I do not take pleasure in putting my feelings into words. This sounds unconventional for someone who is attending MSA for literary, a  discipline for which literally everything you feel is going to be put down into words for others to critique. I think that’s my problem- the fact that someone will have to read what I wrote, and then my story will, in part, be theirs for just a moment. The thought of my thoughts inside someone else’s head all jumbled up and distorted is the kicker. What if they interpret it wrong and then won’t make eye contact with me for the rest of the year? What if the teacher thinks I’m insane and gets me sent to a nut house? As I’m writing this, I’m thinking of how many people will have to read it, even if only for a grade in class. They will have my words in their head and there’s no way I can get them back. Comfort Zones: places our discipline teacher does not like us to stay cooped up in, no matter how warm and cozy. I can understand the concept of wanting us to speak in our very own voice that maybe the outside world doesn’t ever get to hear, but at what cost? Is this narrative grade worth the panic attack that it’s definitely going to give me? Most likely not, but I can already feel the shakes calling my name. To anyone else, the prospect of putting their innermost thoughts on a flash drive might not be so terrifying. Heck, it might even be liberating to have someone know what you’re thinking and feeling. To speak for myself though, I have to disagree. I take great pleasure in having my thoughts stay in my head, where they were created. To reiterate what I’ve already stated- take great care not to get too comfy in your comfort zones. Eventually you will be forced to stand up and stretch, doing things you might not have known you had to do and going places you might not want to go. So my advice to myself, and everyone else, is to enjoy your comfort zone while you can, because you never know when you’re going to wake up and have it disappear for a while.

Everyone has a particular place in their life where they feel the most   comfortable. This place could physical, such as your childhood bedroom, or it could be a state of mind that you travel to for inner peace and better mental health. Comfort zones sound amazing- I mean, what’s not to love about being carefree? However, there is a time and place for every comfort zone, and, sometimes, we all stay in our little bubbles of protection rather than pushing ourselves to be braver, bolder,  and more adventurous in our daily lives.

I’ll give you an example. Picture this: You have always had the same friends, the same schedule in your daily life, same job routine.  You are in your so called “comfort zone”, happy with the niche you have carved out for yourself. One day, you get a job opportunity from the company of your dreams. All expenses to move are paid for, and you would receive a better income, along with the chance to grow as an individual.  Still, you can’t  seem to make yourself go. You struggle with the fact you’ll be on your own in a new place, having to climb the ladder at work all over again; it just doesn’t feel worth it.

This is where most people rely on their stable conditions as an excuse to stay in their comfort zones-  their self-satisfaction  stands in the way of their options.  These people would choose to be “just okay” with the way things are instead of chancing their future, only because they are afraid of the challenges that might lie ahead; they believe the burden of change will be too much for them.

Let’s get one thing straight. This decision will make or break a person. Most often, the people who choose to reside in their comfort zones will continue to use this as an excuse for every passing opportunity until there are no chances left and they are eternally forced to remain in the state they put themselves in. Complacency kills creativity, and we are more often than not so satisfied with being average that we overlook the possibilities our future would hold when we take advantage of our surrounding choices.

Robert Frost said it best when he stated, “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I, I took the one less traveled by.” It made all the difference for him, why couldn’t that happen for us?

 

We’ve all heard the expression “jump out of your comfort zone” or “step out of your comfort zone,” but personally, I disagree with this saying.  I believe that by telling someone that they should ‘step out of their comfort zone,’ you are basically saying that they should do things that make them uncomfortable or anxious.  Why would you want someone to feel uncomfortable?  Why would you want them to be anxious?  You don’t, right?  So why tell them to step outside of what they are comfortable with doing?

For example, say your friend has an anxiety disorder, and what gives them anxiety are things like public speaking or talking to someone that they do not know.  Would you tell that friend to just leap straight into it and speak at a mall full of strangers, all at once?  No?  Would that not be considered ‘jumping out‘ of their comfort zone?

Now, in writing, comfort zones are a completely different story, if you ask me.  In writing, coming out of your comfort zone means to write about a topic or a specific origin that you typically do not write about.  Personally, I believe that doing so results in bettering your writing – and maybe even your state of mind whenever you think about that origin or topic and your opinions on said topic.  There is another popular expression that we have all heard on one occasion or numerous ones:  “Practice makes perfect.”  In reality, practice does not make perfect because such a thing as “perfect” does not exist.  Every piece of writing you create or begin to create will not be perfect – there will be flaws, regardless of how many hours you pour into it, editing, rewriting, and just simply changing it.  No piece of writing will be perfect.

Practice may not make perfect, but that’s okay.  Practice simply betters you and your work until you are satisfied with what you have produced, and comfort zones are what makes that writing unique from anyone else’s.  Maybe you’re never written about a family member’s death because every time you think about it, you can’t help but do anything other than cry, or you’ve brought up a past memory but never had the voice in your writing be your own – you always had a character who had the same memories as your own, and they were the “I” in your story.  All it takes is to gradually ease into bettering your work or your fears.  Then, you will be even closer to expanding that comfort zone.

I live in a bubble. Around  me, I can see others living their life to the fullest. They jump off cliffs and swim with sharks. They try new recipes and go out of dates with no intention of seeing this person again. They drive 20 miles over the speed limit and buy lottery tickets.

But my bubble keeps me safe.

I don’t walk at night. I don’t swim in pools or the ocean. I make sure to always wear shoes. I don’t try new foods. I don’t drive. I don’t gamble.

My bubble has insured my safety for the past sixteen years of my life.

But something has changed.

I long for plane rides to distance lands. I drive down dirt roads at 80 miles per hour. I buy several five dollar scratch off lottery tickets. I eat at new restaurants every week. I have now swam with fish of every kind.

My bubble has burst and now my life is a roller coaster.

With every coin flip, my life changes and a new experience has been set before me. My eyes are open to the world before me.

Often, my bubble tries to ensnare me again. But I will not go back to a life of boredom and fear. I have found myself in the feel of the sand under my toes and the wind in my hair.

My comfort zones have expanded and I do not fear the world around me.

 

Literature is about pushing and expanding beyond set boundaries.  It is not about doing what has been done before.  There is no need for new works to do what has previously been done because we already have the works that did these things first.   Literature should be able to challenge the writer as well as the reader, and if it does nothing new, it challenges nobody.  That is why comfort zones should not be worked within in literature.

Nothing positive can come from only working within comfort zones.  Works written within a comfort zone will eventually bleed into each other because nothing will stand out in them.  Why would a reader to choose to read any work by an author if they can’t get anything new out of them?  Additionally, why would they risk wasting their own time by reading a book that the author wasn’t even willing to take a risk on by working outside of what they’d usually write.

Star Wars was a very original movie.  It took some common tropes of science fiction, and did something original with them.  Most everything in the sci-fi genre up to that point was polished and utopian.  Rather than conforming to this, Star Wars took technology that was still far beyond our own and made it dirtier.  Space ships could break down simply from getting old and needing repairs; droids were caught and resold in a sort of black market.  It additionally combined these tropes with elements of spirituality, forms of story telling like the hero’s journey, and elements of cultures from Asia to Europe to America.  If one were to look back at the movies that came out from the late 70’s to the 80’s, they would find hundreds of movies that attempted to follow the path set by Star Wars and bombed because audiences wanted something new,.

If you’re willing to work outside of your comfort zone, the quality of your work can greatly improve.  Not only can you discover new opinions about things and offer a unique perspective, but even if the quality of the writing done outside of said comfort zone is not immediately the best, it provides an opportunity to improve.  If you were to shine a single pair of shoes for weeks and weeks they would definitely be very shiny, but there comes a point where they cannot be improved by shining anymore.  Working within comfort zones is the same way.

Shine a new pair of shoes and step out of your comfort zone.

What is a comfort Zone? It’s that warm feeling you get when you can finally come home after a long day of too much stress and not enough play. It’s that rush of relief knowing you could finally let go of the harsh world and just melt into your blankets and stop thinking for a moment. They’re the essential part of human function an escape,  a place of no judgment and no lies or insecurities. Comfort zones could be anything that helps you enter a state of calm security.  It could be a time of reflection where you can sit alone and think about your day process everything that happened with a clear mind. For example, a comfort space for me has always been under blankets. There is a sense of peace being surrounded by a soft cover shrouding myself in complete darkness and shutting out any outside forces. During this time I let my mind wander in this space I can think about anything and everything, under blankets we hide from demons and monsters that may lurk under our beds from the demons tapping on our windows at night to the shadow creature peering at you from the closet. I hide from the stress and responsibility, it’s a comfort knowing nothing can get you while you hide from view.

I’m sure that most people who hear the phrase “comfort zones” automatically link it to “stepping out of” them, crossing the boundaries of our own familiarity and security into something entirely undiscovered. That phrase reminds us of leaving what we deem comfortable and stepping into new territory, whether that be trying new foods or going skydiving or moving away from home for the first time. But comfort zones are our homes; leaving home or trying new things can be scary for a lot of people, and it is. We don’t want to introduce ourselves to new environments and experiences because change can be this big terrifying thing that pulls us away from the homes that make us feel safe.

In a sense, comfort becomes synonymous with happiness. We associate what is familiar to us with what makes us happy, what makes us content. Happiness is familiar, it’s simple and clean and inexplicably comfortable. Stepping out of our comfort zones could mean stepping out of our happiness. It means stepping out of the sense of safety, the sense of home.

Surely, this would ring true for everyone, right?

Unless, of course, some of us don’t feel comfortable in our own homes. Unless that sense of security and safety and home that we’re supposed to feel doesn’t feel complete. Like that fulfillment we’re supposed to have from familiarity and comfort just isn’t there.

And we crave it. We desire more than anything to finally feel at home in something, anything. We desire that sense of belonging, that sense of family that makes us not want to leave our comfort zones in the first place. We desire that happiness. 

Some of us find that happiness in certain hobbies. Some of us find that happiness in friends or lovers or family. Some of us even find that happiness when we leave home to discover a new place to belong.

I found that happiness 240.1 miles from home. I found more comfort being surrounded by complete strangers than I ever felt in a town that I hadn’t even seen. Never in my life have I felt more comfortable that sitting right here, typing on a computer named Clementine, listening to one of my favorite artists sing about leaving home.

People may ask me what is was like leaving home for the first time. Friends of my mom may say something about “stepping out of your comfort zone”, and I’ll smile and nod and agree with them because I don’t truly know how to describe just how at home I feel without being back home. I can’t describe how the kids I hardly know already feel like family or how naturally my adoration for them comes.

And I certainly can’t describe why this place feels more like home that the house I’ve lived in for the past seven years of my life.

To me, home is my comfort zone. It’s where I’m free to be authentically me. I couldn’t be authentically me in a town where I’m not allowed to walk around town with my friends. I couldn’t be authentically me in a town where I couldn’t be true to myself.

But my home is here. My home is these old walls restored from decayed academia. My home is the ramen noodles I cook in the microwave when I don’t want what’s been served for dinner. My home is walking around town with people who are here for the exact same reasons I am.

Comfort zones’ nomenclature comes from just that: they’re where we feel most comfortable. And I feel more comfortable in a town I still have two years left to see explore than in one I spent seven years doing nothing in.

This is my home. This is my comfort zone. And nothing can take away the overwhelming sense of complete and utter happiness that I feel here.

Comfort zones are malicious and evil; they envelope you with a loving kindness, wrapping tender arms around your neck. Then, without you even realizing it, the grip fastens, and you’re choking. After a while, there isn’t a lot of hope for escape. You’re just another victim to comfort zones.
Living in middle-class suburbs all my life, I have seen the crime countless times. I’ve seen my parents disappear into it, and they aren’t here anymore. Not them, not really. For abandonment of your wildest hopes, passion, and ambition simply dissolves your true self. That’s not you when you sit in front of the television screen, phone in your hand, contemplating whether the effort of overindulging in food all the way in the kitchen is worth it. You’ve lost yourself when you only learn when taught, when you’ve convinced yourself your quest for passion has reached an end, and that this is where you will stay for the rest of your life.

Humans were not built for luxurious lifestyles and laziness. We can travel farther than horses, lift cars with adrenaline, and sail across the world; most of the population squander this potential in favor what is easy and entertaining.
Even if you are “successful,” you are never truly living to your potential. No one is, and it’s not possible. However, life is not about reaching some endpoint or point of prosperity, but rather the journey that never ends. Passion should be instilled into your everyday life. It is terrifying to take an unknown leap into what you do not know. To become a doctor rather than an artist is safe, but it is the comfort zone that makes the decision. Some would rather live a plain life than taking a chance on struggling.

Can you feel it now? Can you feel the tingling in your bones you’ve been ignoring to get up, do something? Can you hear the whispers of your true self, your adventurous and daring self? Can you feel the comfort zone smothering your spirit now? Will you do something about it, or has it killed you already?

Comfort zones are exactly what they sound like. A place for serenity and peace, a bubble of sorts. Comfort zones are places for people with anxiety, those who aren’t risk takers, or small minded people. Places are contentment are great and used more than you know, in every day life, at all times actually. On one hand, comfort is an amazing life gift.

On the other, comfort zones can hinder you from greatness, from progression. If you’re always sitting in your bubble and never taking any risks to be a better you, you’ll miss out on life. In the end, the choice is always yours, but choose wisely.

I love music, always have, always will. For a lot of people, music is a safe space, a place of comfort and security for when days are bad or times are tough. For me, music is home. There’s never a time when I don’t at least have some little tune stuck in my head. In my mind, music is always playing, even when I can’t hear it. It helps me to think, it helps me to write. It helps me to be me.

With all that music I listen to, you’d think it’d be hard to pick favorites. And it is; I have playlist upon playlist of songs I love enough to call favorites.

But some songs are too good to be just any old favorite. Some songs can reach inside you and twist your insides around and leave you on the other side a different person than you were before, and they still manage to leave that twisty feeling every time you listen to them.

My favorite songs are relative, superficial; but the songs I need to breathe are more important and real than anything else in the world. These songs often come from the deepest parts of ourselves, the parts that we don’t often let other people see. The songs that we hold nearest and dearest to our hearts are the ones that let themselves in without even needing to pick the locks on our hearts because we’ve opened the doors the moment we heard the first line. The songs we come to love wholeheartedly are the ones that help us the most. We discover them at times of high emotion, where that be euphoria or dysphoria or anything in-between. They stick with us, and we stick with them.

The songs that I fall head-over-heels in love with come from nostalgia and reminiscence and longing. They come from isolation and destruction and despair.

But they also come from joy and love and hope.

These are ten songs that came to me at the point in my life when I needed them most. Some are new, some are old, some are dark, some are gold.

But these songs are the ones that continue to make me who I am.

1. starlight // muse
2. oasis+savannah+baby // relient k
3. secret for the mad // dodie clark
4. i wanna get better // bleachers
5. she lays down // the 1975
6. saturn // sleeping at last
7. rivers and roads // the head and the heart
8. home // edward sharpe and the magnetic zeroes
9. hey jude // the beatles
10. heathrow // catfish and the bottlemen