Moving to the New

What have you gotten used to in your life, and why? It has been said that people can get used to almost anything. If it happens gradually over time and in small enough increments, this is probably true. When you become used to things being a certain way, you develop what is called a comfort zone around them.

If you’re used to cleaning up your house every day because you like things neat and tidy, it will put you out of your comfort zone to wake up in the morning and see a sink full of dirty dishes. Generally, you will make sure that doesn’t happen. If, on the other hand, you get used to seeing a sink full of dirty dishes every morning when you get up, it won’t bother you at all and chances are that the sink will remain full until you finally have to wash them in order to have any utensils to eat with!

Now, if you are expecting company, the things you’ve gotten used to and comfortable with may suddenly become very un-comfortable. “That’s okay for me,” you may think, “But I don’t want my guests to see it like that,” and you go to work to clean up the mess. There is nothing like an outside influence to help us turn “have to’s” into “want to’s.” However, once that outside influence goes away, we go back to what we have gotten used to. But what happens when the outside force doesn’t go away?

Times do change, and events can cause us to be quickly moved out of our comfort zones and into unfamiliar territory. This can be disconcerting, and cause us to feel unsure and uncomfortable – especially when this new territory shows no signs of going back to “normal.” Well, with enough time, we get used to these new situations and our minds create new comfort zones. It does take a while, however.

This lag time between uncomfortable to comfortable in the new reality can be sped up a bit. The trick is in applying our imaginations to actually create what we want the new comfort zones to look like, feel like, sound like, and so on. It is natural for human beings to use their forethought to imagine a desired future. It’s just a matter of harnessing our creativity and focusing it on the future we want. We create our new comfort zones without having to wait to get comfortable.