I broke the zipper on my pants the other day. I noticed when I was trying to do up my pants after using the restroom at work. I'm not quite sure what made me check, but I ended up looking down and that's when I realized that the tab pull for my zipper was only connected to one side of my zipper! I had to keep pulling my shirt down so that my open fly wasn't on display for the world to see. Besides being annoying, I noticed something; I was almost physically incapable of not pulling up my zipper after using the restroom.

For the rest of the day, every time I used the restroom I would pull up the tab of my zipper even though I logically knew it would do nothing. Every time I hesitated and tried to go wash my hands, I felt intensely uncomfortable. I was trying to skip an integral part of my bathroom ritual, and ultimately, I just couldn't do it. From there I wondered what other aspects of my day to day life were part of a structured routine I just couldn’t seem to break. When I took a shower that night, I reversed my pattern. Instead of hair, body, face, I started with washing my face, then I washed my body, and finally I washed my hair. After I was finished I took stock of how I felt. Lo and behold, I was uncomfortable. In fact, I didn’t even feel clean! Again, I logically knew that I had scrubbed just as thoroughly as I normally do when bathing, but because I had “done it out of order” my shower didn’t feel complete. Just to assuage myself that I was in fact clean, I went through the entire process the right way. When brushing my teeth afterwards, I rinsed with mouthwash first and then brushed, followed by flossing. Though this still felt strange, I didn’t feel the need to repeat the performance. Same goes for tying my shoes; I apparently tend to start by tying my right foot, followed by my left. I only know this because just as I was about to tie my shoes, I paused and switched feet before continuing.

My thought is this; while these are physical routines that I felt uncomfortable changing, what if my mind works the same way?

I know for a fact that there have been times in the past that I’ve been uncomfortable about what someone was saying and just wanted to block them out. Though I pride myself on being open minded, there are still those times when it’s more comfortable and simply easier to fall back onto old thinking patterns. It’s hard because it’s so easy to go to that place that already is; you know the layout of the thought, idea and/or argument and don’t have to much consider your stance because it has already been established. It’s scary to try and think about a new unfamiliar place; new territories with things you had never considered before and may not be as clear cut as you thought.

Oftentimes, though, that’s where the magic happens. That’s where the Ideas and Discoveries are made. That new place that perhaps no one has visited before. Just think, If Disney had never gone to that place, we wouldn’t have the happiest place on earth! Or if Einstein had never gone there, who knows when the theory of relativity would have been discovered!

It just goes to show that sometimes going outside your comfort zone is a good thing.