Leaving Comfort Zones, Embracing Change

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” – Mark Twain

I've loved this quote for years and have often chewed on it. But years before I read it, I instinctively knew that change was something I had to welcome and embrace. Somehow, I had drummed it into my brain early in life to use change as a means to explore as many open doors as I can. My circuitry shorts at the thought of “What ifs.” “At least, I tried…” is a more satisfying musing for me, whether I failed at the endeavor or not. Whenever I get too comfortable and life’s humming along, I wonder sometimes what I’m missing out on. That’s when I try to stir the pot and see what comes up – a new hobby, a new place to see, and a new opportunity. I never close a door to a possibility until I feel that I’ve fully explored it.

In my late twenties – I was living in a Makati city condo, had a full-time live-in maid, working in a great-paying job, very comfortably entrenched in my family, social and work circles. I was getting a lot of singing and acting jobs, had another steady job and had an incredible network where I had a good standing.

Then change presented itself – an incident happened at work and I quit the following day for integrity’s sake. No matter, I trusted that God had a handle on everything. Besides, I thought I could better focus on my gigs. A few weeks later, a friend of mine told me that her sister, a huge Disney Exec, was asking for recommendations for representatives from the Philippines for a Millennium project that they were doing. She warned me that I was overqualified for the position and the pay wasn’t big but she thought she’d run it through me because she knew that I wanted a short break from hectic Manila life and live and work somewhere else for a couple years. “What the heck...” I thought. This was an opportunity I would truly wonder about all my life if I didn’t do it. Pondering on that and the other things it would have led to would have been utter torture for me. I figured that if I didn’t like suburban Florida, I could always go back to Manila and re-enter its lively, cosmopolitan scene.

So off I went, leaving everything that was comfortable and went to a place where I had little money, no family support, no social network or standing and a totally different way of living. It was tough adjusting in the beginning and breaking the stereotypical myths people thought about me and where I come from, but I didn’t care much as I still had the adventure I intended to have. I had my few sad moments but they were outweighed by my discovery of who I truly was outside all the influences I had been living under all my life. I saw the kind of person that I was even when no one was watching. This was the point in my life when who I am became solidified. The greatest gain I had was growth, and in a way I never could have had I chosen to stay put.

Change is a short but much feared word. At some point, all of us want and need change and we have different attitudes towards it. There are those that are ready and itching for it, those that are fearful but curious, and those that are using every excuse not to do it - a person that they don’t want to leave, age, weather, etc. - refusing to admit, whether consciously or subconsciously, that it is fear and pride that paralyzes them from going into the unknown.

I believe that there is more to fear in not reaching our fullest potential in every way. It’s been said time and again - no pain, no gain. No risks, no rewards.

One day, we’ll look back at our lives and inevitably think of the opportunities – those that we wasted and those that we seized. Will we shrivel in regret or be bursting with thankfulness? I guess that will depend on the choices we make in the present.