Comfort zones

I read this on the web tonight and it made me think about my own comfort zones. What are yours? What makes you feel secure with the world? I often do what the onlooker is doing, watch others intently, wondering what their lives are like? Where they are going next? What sort of lives they have? I expect we all do?

At the moment my comfort zones are looking forward to seeing my kiddies and enjoying a glass of wine when I get home from work, reading my book in bed last thing at night, reading the posts on Dao, meeting friends for a coffee or lunch, walking along the Loire down to our little beach and looking forward to Manny coming home at the weekend.

Here's the thought of the day:

I was on the subway train when I passed by a certain station. From the "windscreen window" opposite my seat, I saw a man at a window in an apartment of a block of flats. The window was grilled and he had one hand on it, clasping. He was leaning forward half-hesitantly while looking out. He looked fearful while hopeful at the same time. I felt sorry for him, a total stranger. There was a wave of Compassion arising in me. He was unkempt and bearded. Early thirties maybe. It was too far and I could not see his eyes. But his posture was that of desperation and depression.

Maybe he is jobless. Maybe his family left him. Maybe he had lost his confidence in himself and society. Maybe all this happened while he was feeling middle-age blues.

We all have our comfort zones. Maybe he was forced to leave his comfort zone, his former refuge of happiness, as a victim of karmic circumstances.

Maybe he just broods around all day in despair and pessimism. That is suffering, yet that might be his next best comfort zone (in a deluded sense), being afraid to face the world again.

Are we better off than him? We have our comfort zones too. Sometimes they aren't obvious at all. It could be a friend that you keep confiding in in times of trouble, being afraid that you can't stand alone. It can be the unchallenging job that offers no chance for personal growth you had been holding for years. Sometimes we shouldn't get too comfortable, or we end up imprisoning ourselves within self-made walls.

I dedicate this article to the unknown man at the window. And to all of us at the windows of our self-made prison cells. Let us not get too comfortable. Any comfort zone that is not Nirvana is not real comfort. Let us start stepping out then.