OUR PRISONS CALLED 'COMFORT ZONES'

“Comfort zones are plush-lined coffins.

When you stay in your plush-lined coffins, you die.”

- Stan Dale 

A very dear friend of mine called me, a week ago. It was night time, and my friend wanted to take my advice on starting a new venture. He is in his mid-forties and blessed with a well-paying job in one of the multinationals. But, as it happens to most of us, my friend, too, has come to a point where the job has just become the proverbial milk-giving cow that keeps him alive… and dead, both!

My friend, like most of us, is experiencing that familiar fear of losing his source of income – the cow – and, is unable to decide: to quit the job and follow his heart… Or, to quit his dream and simply stick to the job…

I remember my early days in Mumbai… I, too, was an eternal dreamer. I was endlessly reading Napoleon Hill’s ‘Think and Grow Rich’ when I had no job, no money and no clue about the next meal. Napoleon Hill knew the importance of one’s ability to decide, and, hence, had devoted an entire chapter on decisions-making. The famous expression ‘Burning the bridges behind You’ or ‘Burning the boats behind you’… yes, I had first heard it from Napoleon Hill…

A great military General (Julius Caesar, some say) had led his men on a crucial battle… They had come by many boats and just landed on enemy’s zone … But, the enemy’s army was overpowering and the General’s men seemed terrified... But, a great leader that he was… sensing the fear in his men’s hearts, he roared, “Soldiers, burn the boats behind you!”

It was a suicidal idea, many soldiers thought.

“Burn the boats, I said,” thundered the General.

The soldiers did…

Pointing to the boats going up in smoke, the great General concluded, “Now, we have no choice but to win or perish… do or die!”

Napoleon Hill tells another story. The Great Chicago Fire of 1871 had destroyed almost everything in the city. The morning after the fire, a group of merchants met to decide whether to leave the city or stay back. All of them decided to leave except one – Marshal Field. He stood there, right in the midst of the ashes and declared, “I will build one of the greatest stores right over these ashes.”

And, he did!

Our comfort zones can be our prisons. Our fears stem from our beliefs, and they need to be examined constantly. Because we all struggle in life to create safety nets around us – financial security tops all of them – eventually, these very safety nets end up becoming our prisons… We get caught up in them… and, we decay!

Napoleon Hill, constantly, reminds us, that most of us take life-changing decisions only when we are driven to the wall… The best in us comes out when we are challenged… Invariably, we look back at these ‘make-or-break’ moments in our lives and conclude: “Thank God, it happened” …

Thank God, I was fired… Thank God, I lost my fortune… Thank God, the tragedy struck… Thank God, I was pushed to the wall…

So, all that I said to my dear friend, that night, was: how difficult it was for me to decide… and, yet, how important. At the end of the day, I had to take the responsibility for my own decision… My friend is wise enough to know that, he, too, has to. But, one thing is as clear as the old saying: “A ship is safe in harbour. But, that’s not what the ships are built for!”

You must have come across this inspiring story in social media. My Cousin, Oscar, sent to me this yesterday and triggered this Post. Hope you love the story…

THROW YOUR COW OFF THE CLIFF

Once upon a time, in a faraway land, there lived a Chinese wise man and his disciple. One day, during their travels, they saw a hut in the distance. As they approached it, they realized that it was occupied, in spite of its extremely poor appearance.

In that desolate place where there were no crops and no trees, a man lived with his wife, three young children, and a thin, tired cow. Since they were hungry and thirsty, the wise man and his disciple stopped for a few hours and were well received.  At one point, the wise man asked:

“This is a very poor place, far away from anything. How do you survive?”

“You see that cow? That’s what keeps us going,” said the head of the family. “She gives us milk, some of it we drink and some we turn into cheese. When there is extra, we go into the city and exchange the milk and cheese for other types of food. That’s how we survive.”

The wise man thanked them for their hospitality and left. When he reached the first bend in the road, he said to his disciple:

“Go back, get the cow, take her to the cliff in front of us, and push her off.”

The disciple could not believe what he was hearing. He said:

“I cannot do that, Master! How can you be so ungrateful? The cow is all they have. If I throw it off the cliff, they will have no way of surviving. Without the cow, they will all die!”

The elderly wise man took a deep breath and repeated the order: “Go ahead. Push the cow off the cliff.”

Though outraged at what he was being asked to do, the disciple had to obey his Master. He returned to the hut and quietly led the animal to the edge of the cliff and pushed. The cow fell down the cliff and died.

As the years passed by, remorse for what he had done never left the disciple. One spring day, the guilt became too much to bear and he left the wise man and returned to that little shack. He wanted to find out what had happened to that family, to help them out, apologize, or somehow make amends. Upon rounding a turn in the road, he could not believe what his eyes were showing him. In place of the poor shack, there was a beautiful house with trees all around, a swimming pool, several cars in the garage, a satellite dish, and more. Three good-looking teenagers and their parents were celebrating their first million dollars.

The heart of the disciple froze. What could have happened to the family? Without a doubt, they must have been starving to death and forced to sell their land and leave. At that moment, the disciple thought they must all be begging on the street corners of some city. He approached the house and asked a man that was passing by, about the whereabouts of the family that had lived there several years before.

“You are looking at it,” said the man, pointing to the people gathered around the barbecue. Unable to believe what he was hearing, the disciple walked through the gate and took a few steps closer to the pool where he recognized the man from several years before, only now he was strong and confident, the woman was happy, and the children were now good-looking teenagers. He was dumbfounded, and went over to the man and asked:

“What happened? I was here with my teacher a few years ago and this was a miserable place. There was nothing. What did you do to improve your lives in such a short time?”

The man looked at the disciple, and replied with a smile:

“We had a cow that kept us alive. She was all we had. But one day she fell down the cliff and died. To survive, we had to start doing other things, develop skills we didn’t even know we had. And so, because we were forced to come up with new ways of doing things, we are now much better off than before.”

GERALD D’CUNHA

Pic.:1. pixabay 2. www.pixelstalk.net