I just spent the weekend in the Canadian wilderness. At an old school fishing club by the name of Bras Coupe, outside of Maniwaki, Quebec.
Here’s an idea of how remote this place is. Maniwaki is a small town about 2 hours north of Ottawa. From Maniwaki, we drove almost an hour, down dirt roads and trails. At the end of the trail is a lake, where we had to take a boat across to get to the club. Yup, you read that right. You can only get to this place by boat.
I tried to find the place (and the lake) on Google Maps, and haven’t had any luck so far haha. That’s how “out there” this place is. Awesome3000.
There’s no perpetual background noise of civilization that we’re all used to. No cloud of technology to be constantly absorbed in. Just tranquil silence, periodically complemented by the harmonious singing of birds. A deeply peaceful stillness.
And this peaceful stillness enabled me to feel something. Something that became more and more apparent the further “out there” I went…
The comfort zone tether.
An invisible tether connecting to one’s comfort zone (which was “civilization” in my case here).
I don’t feel it in everyday life. When in “civilization,” the tether has a lot of slack, making it almost unnoticeable.
But as I journeyed further and further away from civilization, I began to feel it tightening.
Picture a dog in a nice dog house. A leash on the dog connects it to the dog house. When the dog is in the dog house, the leash is barely noticeable. But as the dog ventures further away from the dog house, the leash tightens, becoming more and more noticeable. And eventually there’s a point where the dog is at the end of the leash and cannot go any further. But unlike the dog, our “leash” is intangible and self-imposed/conditioned.
On one of the days, my friend and I went to the most remote place I’ve ever been. We took a motor boat, towing a canoe, to the end of the main lake. From there, we carried the canoe to another lake. We paddled across that lake, picked up the canoe and hiked to another lake. We were sitting in a canoe, 2 lakes away from the club (which is already remote as it is). We were OUT THERE.
It was here that I felt a tug. I was at the end of my invisible tether to civilization. It was a serendipitous feeling of both fear and freedom. I was uneasy at first, because I was experiencing a level of freedom I had never felt before.
I was in unfamiliar territory at every level. I embraced it, and it was beautiful. I had elongated my tether a little bit more. It was no longer at the end of it. The ol’ comfort zone expanded a bit. This was the closest to absolute freedom I have ever been.
Contemplating this concept of a tether to one’s comfort zone, I thought about how ridiculously ballsy the mountain men and explorers of old really were. They cut their tether (to civilization and any sort of comfort zone), and freely roamed the planet. It was an uncomfortable lifestyle (to say the least), yet closer to genuine freedom than most of us will ever experience.
When you leave your comfort zone, you expand your being. And it’s an unparalleled feeling.
What we can do:
We can do things every day to step out of our comfort zone, create a little more freedom, and make life more interesting. Walking a different way to work, talking to a stranger on the train, acquiring a new skill, cooking a new dish, taking a course in sailing…ya dig?
Recognize when you feel that tug at the end of your tether. The unease created by leaving your comfort zone. And remember that growing pains are essential for any growth to occur.
We don’t even have to completely cut the tether to our comfort zone, but we can always expand it. Done consistently, even the slightest expansion adds up enormously over time.
Life is an experience. Let’s make it an awesome one.
-Stevie P!
