I just finished sending a message to my friend to hold me accountable if I do not make a post before the end of March.
Today is Thursday. Tomorrow, I have to do my hair during the day, then work on something important, and in the evening, I must be in church. Tomorrow has been fixed since last week, it’s Good Friday after all. And on Saturday, I’d sleep after the vigil, do some work, and then go out with my siblings, Saturday is fixed too. And, you know how Sunday goes, so if I do not finish this before midnight, you may never read it.
I had never understood why people say "leave your comfort zone" until this break started. I have never really had a comfort zone, you could say that all my zones are interwoven. But, today, as I sit here in this saloon, thinking about the little progress I've made in this break, I concluded that I do have a comfort zone and it's in my house.
You know, the idea of a comfort zone that I got from outsiders is that you would enjoy yourself, you would have a lot of fun. There's so much reveling, doing nothing, but just letting yourself enjoy life. And that the zone outside the comfort zone is the one where none of this exists. There is no comfort, just hard work, pushing, making hard decisions, and taking hard steps.
That's a lie. That's not what the zone outside the comfort zone is.
That zone has a lot of comfort, it is the zone that has all the fun you know in the world, because that's the zone where you cry without feeling like it's the end of the world, that's the zone where you look at your wounds, because you would have wounds, and bind them, tend to them and keep on moving. One day, the scars will stand tall like tattoos of trophies given to you by the thick forest you have passed through.
You see, this is the zone where your capabilities increase as your stress increases. This zone is the growth zone, and you know in growth, there are many surprises.
The zone outside the comfort zone is the one where you create all your beautiful memories, the memories that you're most proud of. The memories that you eventually hang on your wall, the ones that you flaunt to the whole world because it has your pain, your sweat, your joys, it has all of you.
The zone outside the comfort zone is not that zone where you don't laugh, where you don't sleep, where you don't stop and have fun. It is the zone where you realize that happiness is not on a beach in Haiti or inside a museum in Italy, though you would go to Italy, you would go to Haiti, it is in this zone that you realize that the value of happiness is not in a destination, but in the journey.
That zone is the zone where you do things that no one would believe whenever you retell the stories. It is the zone where you laugh all through the night, binge-watching a movie that was released 5 years ago because you had no time to watch it. You laugh through the night, you munch on your popcorn and laugh like you would never work again. But when the day breaks, you get up like nothing happened during the night and work throughout the day.
This is the zone where cold mixing life and fun is not difficult, it is the zone where you can easily switch from one mode to another. In this zone, there's growth, but that's not all there's to see. There's pain, there is happiness, there is comfort, and there is resilience and determination.
This is the zone where you reach out and pick the sun from the sky because you're that tall. There are no mornings nor nights, there is just you reaching your goal.
You are at your full potential, here you can finish a whole book overnight, but you wouldn't, because what is the point? If you finish the book that night, it's not an achievement, it's an addiction, but you would still finish it, you would still stay up through the night reading one more page until day breaks. It is not your comfort zone but there's a lot of comfort here. There's a lot of comfort that you'd rather be here, you'd rather go hard.
In this zone, working yourself to a stupor is very normal, getting drunk in the glass of your own company is not new, because what would you rather be drunk on? Whom would you rather be full of?
This is the zone where you live one day at a time, where you face everything one moment at a time. The zone where consistency is at its peak. Normally, you shouldn't finish a project overnight, but this is the zone where there are 12 hours in the night and you'd finish the project. And, you'd still have some extra 3 hours after those 12 hours to apply some make-up, style your hair, and send a message to your babes, those 3 hours would see you transition from the zombie you became overnight into a handsome god or goddess, and you get to spend the remaining 12 hours in the day chasing your dreams, chasing the only human you're addicted to, chasing your God like it's the last day you got to love him.
In this zone, the goal is the goal, and you will get it. And when you leave this zone, nothing will ever feel right again, because you are a justified addict, you have a reason to be addicted, a justifiable reason. You have a reason to be obsessed, a very good reason, so nothing outside this zone, although normal, is normal anymore. You have seen it, you have tasted it, and you could never imagine your whole life just sleeping and not making moves. You know those moves. You could never imagine not making them.
Epilogue.
Happy Good Friday!
I've read 4 books in the year. (Actually, I have read more, but these are the ones I am accountable for.) And I've seen many good movies too. I have a confession to make.
The thing is, I love what reading does to me. I love that you can know when I’m reading a good book. How it changes everything about me. I love that you can see it in the things I write, in the way I speak, in my demeanor, in my simple conversations, and in the way I approach things. You can literally see it in everything.
