Two months ago, I’m still procrastinating at my room back in Pekanbaru, wandering around school like soulless ghost of the past with no future, staring at the calendar to see my date of departure for the regional orientation. Tonight, here I am, sitting in a room which temperature measured in Fahrenheit, with unfinished reading of Haruki Murakami’s The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle.
Get out of your comfort zone, they said. But why the heck it is called “comfort zone” at first? Because you’re comfortable with it. Because you know what you’re supposed to do, because you know exactly what are the consequences of your action. Now you’re out of that zone; you’ve exited that circle. Everybody’s stranger, everything’s peculiar. Welcome to the jungle, my friend.
I have to admit that the past two months has been one of the most hectic in my life. I’ve been out of my comfort zone. The zone I’ve taken for granted for many, many years; family, friends, teachers, colleagues, enemies. I live in the same city, same neighborhood, same community, same social circles. The same cinder block of routines, the ole’ ecosystem of repeated melancholy.
Then I voluntarily, in my own free will with no compulsion whatsoever, to exit that zone and enter the area of uncertainty. The zone of strangeness, bewilderment, hesitance, and fear. But at the same time, it is the zone of excitement, amazement, and curiosity. Same thing did apply to Marco Polo or Ibn Batuttah when they traveled the world, or to Armstrong and Aldrin when they landed in the
Moon.
Why would you leave your comfort zone?
I don’t know. Honestly, I don’t know.
I’ll find out here, out of that zone.
See you around.
Indianapolis, 10:16 PM. Fall is still here. Winter is coming.
A colleague of mine, Nurul Zamzami, posted this beautifully-written essay of her own soul-searching. I sincerely recommend anyone to read it.
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