The Comfort Trap: Unmasking False Security

Hello and welcome to another episode of Words With My Soul.

When we refer to comfort, we often refer to positive things in our life that make us feel relaxed. Everyone has their own definition of what is comfortable and what constitutes a comfortable environment. If you take a moment to think about what comfortable means to you, you might be thinking about no problems, your bed, your living room or your house or maybe just spending time with your loved ones and your friends.

These are things that we associate with being comfortable and when we talk about being trapped in a state of comfort we often associate it with overindulgent in those things that make them comfortable.

Things like sitting in front of the tv or eating too many snacks or staying in bed too long which is true people can be trapped in this style of comfort and typically what happens is people obtain a certain stage in life where they have enough for them to not be completely miserable they're not suffering in a huge way it's not like they don't have food or they don't have shelter or they don't have their basic needs met but they don't have the

life that they want they don't have the things that they want in life and most people are willing to give up on those things that they want because they have enough to make them comfortable and that comfort erodes that sense of motivation and desperation to get to somewhere it's not like life is so bad that we need to take action in order to make it better but we're also not living our dream life and this is the comfort danger spot because you don't have enough motivation or reason to

put the effort in to drastically change your life but you also have a sense of misery and emptiness because you have to sacrifice doing things that you want to do or achieving things that you want to do because what you have currently is...

Not something that you want to lose. You don't want to risk giving up the current comfort for a potential better life because as much as it could potentially be better and work out and you get all the things that you want, it could also be worse and you could lose everything.

And stepping into risk versus that comfortable spot where things are okay, that is where people get trapped there is only so much things you can do to sugarcoat the unsatisfactory aspects of your life you know you might buy a different car or get a bigger house but it doesn't really mean something to you it's not important and it doesn't drastically improve the quality of your life so then what you have is a decision to make you have to decide whether you want to risk what you currently have

for a chance of a life that you actually want to live or you live a life that is comfortable but mediocre and not something that you really want to be living and to me the thought of accepting that mediocrity that standardness accepting the comfort at this point it seems a little bizarre to me because I've had certain experiences and understood certain things through those experiences that allow me to realize that everything is a huge risk and even the idea of comfort

can be taken away from you you know just because you don't take risks that doesn't mean that something bad can't happen and you lose it all anyway so every day you wake up you are risking something. So the idea of trying to preserve what you have by not risking anything and accepting a life that you are not happy with just seems kind of redundant to me because you're not happy with your life yet you want.

To keep it that way you want to ensure that things don't change but I understand it I understand why people make those choices especially when there are other factors to consider like your family and it may not be the perfect life or the dream life but to risk it all when you have people depending on you is much more difficult because it's not just your sacrifice and your risk you're risking and sacrificing the comfort and safety of your family and I truly do

understand that but I'm also aware that your life if you're not living the way that you want to be living and having the experience you want to have it will have a negative effect on all those people anyway. That comfort isn't real. If you have a job and you're going there to provide for your family, that job can still get taken away from you. And if all your means of earning income depend on your time and skill and your services, then that can also get taken away from you.

You might get ill, you might get injured, you might be sick, you might not be able to attend work. And those systems that were previously affording you safety and comfort.

You'll soon realize that they're not that safe and they can disappear at any moment in time so it's a gamble either way and in my mind you may as well gamble and risk on something that you actually want to be doing something that you're actually happy to invest your time in and an experience that you're going to enjoy than you are in something that you don't enjoy that you don't love an experience that you're not happy with because the gamble is

truly the same the risk is the same it may not seem that way because one element seems to hold your hand and guide you along with it and the other seems like a leap of faith but all of those are illusions of safety not real safety not guaranteed safety because nobody can guarantee you safety your doctor can't ensure you that you won't get ill the company that you work for can't ensure you that it won't go out of business or get bankrupt or make redundancies the country

that you live in can't guarantee that there won't be wars or conflict brought upon you we want to believe that these systems are in place we want to believe in this idea of safety and comfort but that idea is false largely false it's largely pretend and okay fine there may be more risk in doing certain things. There may be more risk in starting your own company or going independent, but all of that risk is relative.

And at least when you are doing the things that you want to do and going on the risky path, you are accepting the risk rather than believing a lie or believing an idea of safety and comfort that doesn't exist.

You are actively engaging with the risk of life you are pursuing life and going about your experience cognizant and aware that you are risking something rather than living in a state of believing that everything is good and it always will be and nothing's going to go wrong and everything is fine and i'm safe and my job's going to be there forever and nothing's going to change because we know that's not true and even if that is true temporarily we can't guarantee any

longevity on it and once those systems fail or go wrong then we're in a much worse place than if we'd have taken the risks in the first place because you won't be prepared. If you're constantly doing something risky, you are constantly evaluating and assessing the risks and the dangers, whereas when you are comfortable, you are not living in a way that is preparing for those eventualities or preparing for what might go wrong. You are free to live in the bubble until the bubble pops.

There is also a whole other side of comfort, and this is another way that many of us live, is not that everything is so good that we're comfortable it's that everything has been so bad that we're comfortable we're comfortable with the negative we're comfortable with the fight we're comfortable in the shadows and the darkness and we have become so accustomed and numbed to things going wrong things not going our way that the very thought

of something going our way or some us having something valuable or good actually terrifies us because that gives us something to lose. That gives us hope and something that can be taken away and that is almost that much more scary than if we didn't have it in the first place. So for many of us we can live in this state of self-sabotaging because we don't want things to go right.

We're afraid of what will happen if everything that we want we get if things actually go our way because then what will happen when it gets taken away and for people that think like this we're always certain that it won't go our way that it will eventually crumble that something will go wrong eventually and this can be really confusing because it can look like somebody has a really uncomfortable life that they're constantly battling constantly fighting and everything is

a war with them and yet they are still living in the comfort zone. Despite their life, despite the way their life is going, they're still living in the comfort zone. Even though they're not comfortable, even though they're not happy, even though they're not content and things aren't really that great for them, it's still a comfort zone.

Because the truth is, to break out of that zone, they have to start accepting something that is even more uncomfortable than the horrors of their life, than what is going on in their life.

They have to accept that it can be better that things can go right for them that they are capable of happiness and good things can actually happen in their life and they can get what they want when you have been through enough things and enough terrible things have happened to you you can give up on that idea that it's even possible that good things can happen to you And when it seems like something positive is happening, it's easy to pull the rug from outside your own feet.

To tear away the opportunities from yourself, because accepting that it was never going to work in the first place is easier than accepting it might have actually worked and something could have gone my way, but I had to risk. Getting rejected or hurt again risk suffering even more and that the present suffering is much easier to accept than putting yourself out there and letting yourself hope again of giving yourself something to want it's much easier to say.

I don't want anything than it is to accept that we actually do want things and that we want to pursue a better life and that we hope to have more in our lives and have happiness and good relationships and comfortable surroundings and good things and great experiences it's easier to accept that you know we don't even want those things anyway that we were never going to get them and if those things are going to reject us we're going to reject them back we're going

to ostracize those parts of ourselves that want and desire and need to feel comfortable and.

Safe and loved and throw them in the bin and get rid of them because we have accepted that they're never going to happen for us and that is a comfort zone that is a state of not wanting to go through more pain or that the present pain is not enough to get you to take action but it's also not good enough for you to be living a quality life that you want to live even though these seem like opposite ends of a spectrum they still have very much the same core problem in that they don't want to move

from where they are because they are scared of what will happen if they do and they think staying still or staying with where they are at the moment is safer than pursuing something better or trying and attempting to climb the ladder but the truth is it can always be better and it can always be worse and good things are going to happen and bad things are going to happen and the only thing that you can control are the choices

that you make of the strength that you muster up to confront these aspects of your life to say no I'm not happy with where I am or I do want something else I do want to have more and get more from this experience and I'm willing to put myself out there. I'm willing to risk it going wrong. I'm willing to risk things falling apart because I know that I will rebuild. I will get to where I want. I will make things happen and if not I'm exactly where I was.

Unhappy and uncontent and therefore have I really risked anything? Because really no matter how bad it gets can it really get worse than a lifetime of unhappiness thank you for listening.