Comfortably Active

At the end of yesterday’s post, I asked a question, “In what aspects of your life have you become comfortably numb?”

Looking back, I feel like I did you a disservice.

I asked a very serious question, but didn’t give you any help.

I outlined what I called a serious problem and then just left you on your own.

When I ask you an important question, I have to be willing to answer it myself.

After thinking about being comfortably numb in my own life, I think I came up with a way to combat the feeling comfortably numb that can help us both.

So here’s a continuation of yesterday’s post and something I should have said in the first place.

One area of my life where I have become susceptible to feeling comfortably numb is with dating.

I’ve been single for awhile now and I’ll admit that I have become comfortable with that. I may like to have a girlfriend, but I don’t feel I need one.

Being single has become my status quo and I am likely afraid to mess that up by actively pursuing a relationship (side note, actively pursuing a relationship kind of sounds like a term used to describe a stalker).

How do I break out of the numb? Do I need to start dating any woman I can find? No, that would be too dramatic (plus it’s probably another way to describe a stalker).

I need to break out of my feeling of comfortably numb by becoming comfortably active.

When we think of change, we all think of a drastic change. And that’s why we fear change. We assume it will be radically different and we will not be able to handle that.

So don’t make a drastic change.

If you are comfortably numb at work, you should become comfortably active in finding more invigorating work at your current position. If that’s not possible, you should become comfortably active in finding a new position with a different company.

You don’t have to take a huge risk.

Make a comfortable change. And then another comfortable change. And then one more.

Just like what we talked about in a post from last week, we need to be willing to start with something small.

And once you start, you must be willing to keep going.

Before you know it, you’ll be feeling something more meaningful and less numb.

In my case, I can’t be afraid to date just because I fear that a relationship will mess with my comfortable life. My perception of a drastic change contains a slippery slope that forces me into marriage by the end of the week.

I know that is crazy, and just writing it down makes it feel even more absurd, but that is what fear can cause our mind to believe.

To take my own advice, I need to become comfortably active in finding someone to date. This could mean asking friends and family if they know anyone I might like. It doesn’t have to be dramatic like hitting on any random woman I meet.

One date could be my comfortable change and then my next step would be a months worth of comfortable change.

So my task for you would be to recognize where you’ve become comfortably numb. Once you do that, write it down. Next write down three ways you can become comfortably active.

Becoming comfortably active will help you make comfortable change and before you know it, you won’t even be able to remember what that numbness felt like!