We are hardwired to view sameness as safety, change as danger.
I realized this when considering whether or not I should sign up for a jiu-jitsu seminar with martial arts legend Royce Gracie.
For those of you who aren’t familiar with him, Royce is a professional mixed martial artist from Brazil who specializes in a form of jiu-jitsu developed in part by his father, Helio Gracie.
Royce is now a 6th degree black belt and has won 19 professional mixed martial arts fights. He’s also won multiple Ultimate Fighting Championship tournaments, and at age 46 still actively trains and teaches.
Royce was coming to The Edge Martial Arts and Tumbling to put on a seminar. The problem was that I didn’t train in jiu-jitsu. I do train in Muay Thai, but that is a world of difference from jiu-jitsu. Muay Thai is more about punching and kicking and knockouts, whereas jiu-jitsu is more about joint-locks, chokes, and submissions.
My dilemma was over wanting to train with a martial arts legend and get an introduction to a new style of martial art, or simply stay in my Muay Thai comfort zone.
See, though I currently train in Muay Thai, which is a kind of kick boxing, I’m not a fighter. Any of the folks I train with, most of whom are half my age, could whoop my rear end in a real fight. I hate getting punched or kicked. I’m old, and get tired after just a couple rounds of sparring. Some days, I wonder whether or not I should even bother going to practice. What’s the point?
Well, the point, for me, is to improve myself, bit by bit. My competition is not the person punching me, but the voice inside my head telling me to go sit down and take it easy. When I’m getting kicked, the voice is telling me I wouldn’t be in pain if I was at home on the sofa. And at the end of practice, when my heart is pounding, sweat is stinging my eyes, and I feel like throwing up, the voice is laughing at me.
I want that voice in my head to shut up.
So, yes, you guessed it, I decided to go to the Royce Gracie seminar.
And it was wonderful.
I think we all have that voice in our heads. It tells us to nest, to get comfortable, to collect those we love and the things we love around us, and not to do anything to rock the boat.
Unfortunately, listening to this voice causes us to stagnate, especially if we never realize our dreams.
Growth only comes from trying something new, where you risk uncomfortableness and failure, sacrificing safety and comfort.
In Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey, Luke Skywalker is a moisture farmer living with his aunt and uncle on Tatooine. Yet he dreams of something greater.
Luke’s safe environment is changed when two droids arrive at the farm and the message from Princess Leia is discovered. This change is what sparks Luke to go on a grand adventure.
Or consider Bilbo Baggins, quite content in his little Hobbit hole in Hobbiton, yet itching perhaps for something more. His mundane life is changed when Gandalf the wizard and 13 dwarves stop by Bilbo’s house, talking of adventure.
We all have dreams and aspirations. But realizing them involves stepping out of our comfort zone.
We must learn new things, challenge ourselves, reach for that brass ring once in a while.
If the goal we set is a non-trivial one, we won’t reach it after just one day. But a series of small changes, small steps, taken each day can lead to heroic accomplishments over time. One step leads to another, and if you just keep taking that one next step, pretty soon you’ll discover that, in fact, one can just walk into Mordor.
I think that, in the end, on our deathbed, we will regret the chances we didn’t take, the friendships we didn’t make, the barriers we didn’t break.
What is holding you back? Take that first step right now, if you are willing to move out of your comfort zone.