Edit desk: Stepping out of your comfort zone

Madi Welker

Humans are creatures of comfort. My freshman year, my mom sent me an article about this from the Huffington Post, titled “6 Reasons to Step Outside Your Comfort Zone.” Even though we are creatures of habit, the article went on to explain that uncomfortable situations can push us to achieve our goals.

Carolyn Gregoire, the author of the article, wrote “Our comfort zone is our natural, neutral state — a place where stress and anxiety are minimal, where we know what’s coming next and can plan accordingly.”

I have always struggled with leaving my comfort zone, even though I know this is what I should do.

I had the same friends, the same teammates and the same teachers throughout high school. I never felt the need to fight the comfort that was my small school district that is not large enough to be considered a town. I was always told, “It will be different when you leave the nest and find various niches in college.”

Uncomfortable levels of uncertainty have made it hard for me to ever want to leave my comfort zone and really live this idea of “branching out.”

With the social cliques at Lehigh of Greek life, athletes and individuals not associated with a Greek chapter, it isn’t as easy as it looks. I find myself walking around campus saying “hi” to the same people and giving the “Lehigh look away” to everyone else.

Even with these groups, I don’t blame Lehigh for my inability to branch out in college.

I stick to my sorority, my club sport and my fellow journalism students just as I did in high school. As I broaden my horizons through joining clubs and actively interacting with people I don’t typically, I realize that there are positive effects by doing this.

As kids, we were risk-takers, and we lived on the edge, according to The Huffington Post article. As we age and learn more about the scary “real world,” we start holding back and trying fewer new things because of the fear of failure.

I think many students like myself find that Greek life and other social cliques at Lehigh keep them from really branching out from their safe social circles. I am not the first to say this, but we, the members of Greek life, tend to keep to ourselves.

Even with this, it is not an excuse. I am missing out on meeting more than 50 percent of this campus by sticking with my groups, and I know I’m not the only one.

Of course I love my sorority and the people who I tend to spend time with, but there definitely is a lack of drive to look past these people and explore the rest of the campus.

Our comfort zones get smaller and smaller as we age, but if we keep expanding them, we open ourselves up to greater opportunities. I don’t want to hold myself back from all of these opportunities. No way.

I have realized I am passionate about digging past the already formed social groups and exploring this diverse and inclusive campus. All I know is that it’s definitely time to live the cliché I always aimed to when I was in high school and branch out. Lehigh has too much for me not to branch out.