“Life begins when we move out of our comfort zone”.

I am a proud daughter of a CBI Officer. Since his job was a transferable job, we were quite accustomed to shifting to and living in a new place every five years depending on where my dad’s next posting would be.

What is the first thing that comes to your mind when you think of living in a new city ? I am sure most of us will be curious about the new place at the same time we might be timorous about making a fool of ourselves at the new place.

I used to feel the same. My fear of being at a new place often overruled my eagerness to check out the place. I remember I used to cry each time dad tells us that we will have to shift to a new city since this meant I will have to leave my old place and meet new people, new school , struggle to find new friends etc. For me the thought of all this itself was quite intimidating . Nevertheless, I am glad I did overcome this fear because of my dad’s job. At first I was quite ambivalent to accepting this lifestyle.

It was my mom who insisted that I see every change in life as an opportunity that life has given me and not as an obstacle .She showed me a new way of looking at life .Thanks to this outlook each trip to a new city had then become something to look forward to. Initially I thought shifting home to a new place every five years was a cumbersome idea , but I started liking the odds. In India,each state is different from the other – be it people, language, way of living, customs , traditions , food etc and now with this outlook I had five years to get to know the people and the place well before moving to a new state.

My dad’s first posting was in Delhi. His next posting was Mumbai followed by posting at Bangalore, Chennai then Goa. I have lived in three of the four metropolitan cities in India ( Delhi, Kolkatta, Mumbai and Chennai),a Cosmopolitan city – Bangalore now called Bengaluru and Goa. I love the busy city life. I am sure I would never have said that if I had never tried to come out of my comfort zone. City life is not all that boring as many describe it to be. Even City life has it’s vibes. I agree the rustic charm of villages or blissful scenic beauty in states like Kerala , Goa and other serene states in India might not be seen in modern cities but there is beauty in city life as well. It is quite surprising that even in such chaos, there is a streak of tranquillity that is idiosyncratic to city life alone.

The best part of city life is that people stay busy hence don’t bother much about the stereotypical ideas of living in a particular way and prefer to spend their free time in a more productive way. They have less time on their hands for gossip therefore people become less querulous and are happy with life . Yes, there are many who complain about the stress in life – “ to them I have just one thing to say- well stress is there in every job and every place. It has nothing to do with a particular lifestyle or city it purely depends on the individual‘s ability to handle the stress”, which they will eventually learn.

Shifting to a new place and settling there is not just fun , we also learn a lot in the process. When we move out of our comfort zone we learn to live in a more harmonious and peaceful way, in other words ,“ We become confident and grow with a more flexible and forward outlook”. Something that I learnt from life is that people are different hence it is pretty obvious that we might come across people having antithetical opinions and view points than ours. Living with a diverse group of people in a different state or place teaches you to mingle with different individuals. This is something I could learn only because I dared to come out of my comfort zone.

Life gives us many unique experience from which we get to learn a lesson. Regardless of what life has for us we should try our humble best to get a better insight of what life is teaching us. I am glad I could learn this lesson from life.
Note: To everyone who is scared to try new things and prefer to stay within your comfort zone , I have a message-“ Be strong and try out things out of your comfort zone , I am sure you will find a new confident self”.

By: Aswathi Ashok.