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Time to Get Uncomfortable
 
“Wonder is the beginning of wisdom.”  - Socrates.
 
This famous line, attributed to Socrates, champions curiosity – the desire to find the causes and origins, the defining  characteristics, of what we encounter or take for granted in reality.
 
This is a fine principle for the philosopher, but it also serves another function: it lends us a means of better seizing the moment and deepens our appreciation of life.
 
Consider your childhood, or if that’s beyond recollection, observe a child. A child has the unique ability to become so absorbed in something that everything around it seems to cease to exist. Children invest all their senses and attention on the comprehension and manipulation of immediate stimuli. As we grow older, we half-laughingly remark how time seems to go by faster. What happens? We become comfortable and inured to our realities – time is not going faster, we have simply lost interest in our surroundings and instead have our focus shattered, its shards lying about in dozens of distributed activities. Metaphorically speaking, we have left off maintaining and watching a single, warming fire to instead run about trying to control and even put out the many fires around us. And this is just the way it is when we grow and get responsibilities. But we must not forget that home fire - that fascination we had watching the flame. As children we have this intense attention; a child can be fascinated with a trinket that we glance at, define, and dismiss from our minds. It takes us less than a second to do so. For the child, time slows with the unfamiliar and awe of discovery. The moments of wonder and discovery are intensely involved ones. Take something as simple as a puddle: for the child, it’s a universe; for the adult, it’s a nuisance. Adults are largely on cruise control.
 
wonder
 
Not convinced? How many times have you driven a route and arrived home with no memory of the trip? Or done a task mindlessly? It wasn’t like that the first time: the first time demanded many of your physical and mental abilities. And we may have even enjoyed, stressed over or found the process fascinating. When we think back to the first time we did something, usually we reflect that it seems to have taken longer than subsequent attempts. This, naturally enough, because once we master something, we invest less of ourselves in it. It loses the wonder and needs less of our resources.
 
This is actually a good thing: mastery and familiarity allow us to progress, to attempt more complex or novel experiences by diverting resources and attention from those we have mastered. However, as we age, we desire comfort and we begin avoiding new things. We stop wondering.
 
This is understandable. Most careers involve repetitive tasks and behaviours. Families thrive on routines and stability. Once “settled”, a person, largely stops exploring, having already decided on a personal comfort zone of people, activities, likes and dislikes. It is no accident that as we age, we make fewer friends and find less things novel: we have less opportunity for such experiences and we disregard our current surroundings as overly familiar.
 
Socrates had a quote for this too: “the unexamined life is not worth living”. If we allow ourselves to be comfortable, our lives are in danger of becoming superficial – we are in danger of becoming superficial. All those canned conversations, conventional exchanges, meaningless habits, dead end tasks, etc. We lose touch with why we fell in love with the people around us, with our goals and dreams. Our comforting routine has become a shield, rationalizing the little voice at the back of our minds that hints that we may not exactly be as happy as our prepackaged smiles to the world suggest.
 
bored
 
The solution? Get out of your comfort zone. And here’s a few ways how to do it:
 
Go out there and try new things! This is the answer of the experience enthusiast. While excellent advice, it’s not practical for those of us who can only hope at a few days of vacation a year.  But for those who have great amounts of time and freedom, this is an attractive option.

Research a little on something around you that is becoming stale. Where did your neighbourhood come from? When was this particular object/hobby invented? Why is this object such and such a colour or material? What is the origin of this word I love using? Make the ordinary fascinating again by asking new questions. Go deeper!

Change something about yourself. It could be anything, from your diction, clothing style, eating habits.

Change your environment. Rearrange the furniture. Change the paint. Plant a garden. Buy something new that is needed. Restore something old.

Find a way to get involved in your local community. Discover what is important to the people around you. It may change your appreciation and deepen your understanding of the things and people you live with.

Take up a new hobby. With a new hobby comes new learning and new connections.

Reflect on the things that you have made routine. Is there a better way of doing something? New methods or technologies? Or perhaps there is a way that is just as good, but different from how you do things. Try it. Share it.

Give meaning back to the things you say, whether it be a consideration on the words of a prayer, or the response you immediately shoot out when someone asks how you are doing. Renew these moments with personal investment, attention and sincerity.

Remember your original intentions. Why did you want to start this business? Get this job? Marry this person? Take up croquet? Have you lost that original vision? Have you come to take for granted something that was once a great pleasure, struggle or mystery? Find those origin points again – remember your pure intentions.

Do not fear the unknown. New things make us seem weak, silly, slow, uncoordinated and ignorant. As we age, we become self-conscious – we don’t like failing, especially when others can see. Lose this attitude: it is massively sabotaging. Go out there and find new things. And if you fail, fail marvelously, because it is through failure that we learn.
 
Get uncomfortable. Make the ordinary wonderful. Turn five minutes of mindless cruising through the routines of life into something intense. It’s an attitude, a way of being, that keeps the world fresh and interesting. It keeps you fresh and interesting. There are no boring things, only boring people. The present moment is all we have.

And, I wish for you this blessing: may you truly live all the days of your life!