When does your comfort zone cease to be good for you?

When is it good to challenge yourself? How do you decide what is better for you at a given time?”

My comfort zone is solo operation. I am often not comfortable asking for help or involving others in my ventures though I would love to if that individual is willing.

My discomfort in asking for help is mostly caused by those around me. For example, a few weeks ago, I noticed the spigot on one of the rain barrels is not letting water through. I knew the water level was low but I also knew that the water level wasn’t so low that only a trickle of water was coming out. So I turned the spigot until it was loose and I was absolutely correct as a torrent of water came out of the hole that formerly held the spigot. Thankfully, I had a bucket nearby, otherwise, that rain water would’ve been wasted.

Forcefully, I jammed the spigot back in and turned it as fast as I could to stop the water but I wasn’t able to stop it all the way because the thread-seal tape on the threads of the spigot was gone and in order to fix this problem, I would need to take the spigot back out, wrap the threads in thread-seal tape, and screw the spigot back in. It was a 2-person job because I would need the other person to catch all that water pouring from the rain barrel.

My mom was the only one available and she was not happy I asked her for help. She came storming outside, shouting until the entire neighborhood could hear, and she kept going until I gave up and told her to go back inside. Her acting this way not only made me feel embarrassed and humiliated but it also reminded me of why I choose to do everything on my own. To ask for help and get such a reaction makes me not want to ask for help.

It’s why I always look at “asking for other’s help” as the last resort for everything. I know I won’t get the same reaction from any other person, it’s just such a mundane thing has somehow ceased to exist in my comfort zone.

So when my manager asks me to reach out to a specific person for help, it always takes me a period of time before I can muster up the courage to complete such task. I have to constantly remind myself that I can’t do everything solo, that sometimes, I must ask for help whether I like the reaction or not.

Sunday Poser