50+ Lifestyles

PUBLISHER’S CORNER

By Eloise Graham

Stepping Outside of the Comfort Zone

Have you ever stopped to think that as we get older, we get more complacent with our lives? We get “stuck in a rut” so to say. We are comfortable doing the same routine – and our comfort zone is decreasing.

On the other hand, look at the toddler. He or she is reaching for new objects, pushing forward to see what is next. Stretching the limits, curious about life and stepping outside the comfort zone. Now that is living!

With all of our knowledge and experience, maybe we need to take a lesson from the infant – Step outside our comfort zone, expand our horizons. Live every moment we have to the fullest. What stretches your comfort zone? George Bush Sr. went skydiving on his 80th birthday, and then again on his 85th and 90th. Now that is a little more stretching than I want to do, but I might ride along in the small plane that the jumpers use. A hot air balloon would stretch my zone, and that might be just enough stretching for me.

There are little stretches you can do, and the results will be wonderful! Smile at a stranger in the grocery
store aisle. The neighbor that you only wave at when you are out in the yard, go knock on their door and invite them for a cup of coffee, or a walk through the neighborhood. Take an art class, or poetry writing class. Go to a travelogue about a place you have never been. Then do research on it, learn about it and its history. Who knows? Maybe you will decide to go there in person. That would be quite a stretch, and well worth it. So start stretching and keep living, not just existing.