The Importance of Discomfort

Humans shy away from awkward situations or anything that will pull us out of our comfort zone. It’s in our nature. Even when confronted with simple, one-on-one interactions, we cling tightly to our phones as lifelines to pull us out of conversations we never wanted to enter. After doing a self-audit of my first three years of college at UNC-Chapel Hill, I realized that I spent most of my time doing résumé-boosting activities and joining professional clubs. I don’t regret joining any of them, organizations like the Public Relations Student Society of America have been critical to my professional and personal development. However, I knew doing these types of activities would keep me in my safe bubble and never scare me. So, one of my 2017 New Year’s resolutions was to step out of my shell and do things that I was naturally hesitant to do.

At the beginning of my senior year, I decided to take active steps to go out on a limb and make myself do something I never thought I would do in college: audition for an a cappella group. I have loved singing for as long as I can remember. In high school, I was involved in chorus, gospel choir and Tri-M Music Honors Society; I’ve performed the national anthem at UNC-Charlotte and high school basketball games; and I’ve dabbled in musical theatre since elementary school. For some reason, after coming to UNC-Chapel Hill, I quit singing completely (except occasionally in the shower). I just viewed it as closing a big chapter and, for a while, I really didn’t notice anything was missing from my life.

After a lot of life-altering events happened during my first three years of college, I realized I needed to make the most of my final year of being an undergraduate student. I wanted to step out of my comfort zone and resume doing something that I loved for so long, so I auditioned for Cadence All-Female A Cappella at UNC. I never thought I would get in as a senior, since it’s pretty uncommon to do so in the a cappella community here, but Cadence welcomed me with open arms. It didn’t take long for me to realize that joining this group of empowering, kind women was probably best thing I had done in college. Not only was it incredible to be singing again, but surrounding myself with a strong support system and developing close relationships with 14 new women was exactly what I needed. In only one year of Cadence, I have had the chance to serve as the group’s publicity chair, sing three solos at our two concerts, host two of our biannual retreats, record a single and release a music video (currently in production/post-production). None of that would have happened, nor would meeting some of the best people I’ve ever known, if I hadn’t taken a leap of faith and stepped outside of my carefully-curated college bubble.

Last summer, after spending several months in Paris, I decided to do something I have always been hesitant to do: Almost every weekend, some of my friends in my study abroad program and I would travel to a nearby European city. At the end of our time in Paris, a lot of my friends went straight home. I had a trip to Greece planned, but some time to kill in between. So, I decided to go out on a limb and solo travel. If you’d have told me I would be traveling alone in Europe a year ago, I never would have believed it. Doing a lot of international travel via train, car and plane (shout out to Ryanair) over the summer prepared me well for going at it alone. For a long weekend, I traveled from Paris to Dublin, where I linked up with some Irish mates for a bit and had such an incredible time. I then went back to Paris, flying from Dublin to Beauvais, France, then taking a coach from Beauvais to Paris, and finally taking the métro to a hostel in the 14th arrondissement. I spent my final 36 hours alone in Paris before flying to Athens by myself, and I wouldn’t have ended my time in the City of Lights any other way. It was incredible to spend my final day in the Paris alone, so I could properly say my goodbyes to one of my favorite places in the world. I never thought I would be able to be by myself in Europe, but I made myself do something that scared me a little bit and it was beyond rewarding.

Taking another step out of my comfort zone happened recently: I was raised as a Protestant Christian and grew up attending primarily Baptist churches. I had never before attended a religious service at a place of worship with a significantly different denomination, worship style or religion. Full disclosure – I don’t regularly attend church services at the moment, unless I go home for a while to visit my family, since I usually try to catch up on much-needed sleep on Sunday mornings. I recently started dating a guy who identifies as Catholic, and his family came to town last weekend. I met them at a lovely dinner on Saturday night (it went really well, in case you were wondering!) and they invited me to mass the following morning. They were adamant about making sure I didn’t feel pressured to go, which was very considerate. After some thought, I decided to join them, knowing that I was quite unprepared for the ritualistic worship services of the Catholic faith. I’ll be honest; it was slightly uncomfortable for me at times – not knowing the right times to kneel or stand, not being able to take communion (and having to remain seated in the pew while everyone else got up and formed an orderly line at the front of the church), falling behind during the call-and-response portions of the service, staying silent during prayers everyone else knew by heart, not anticipating being anointed with holy water by a priest flinging it into the crowd with a brush. But, had I not pushed myself to go, I would have never experienced the beautiful scene of that worship service. It was incredible to watch how genuinely moved everyone around me felt, and how captivated they were by the mass. I loved it.

Every time I’ve conscientiously taken a step out of my comfort zone, I have never regretted it. That’s the importance of discomfort; it opens the door to new opportunities, cultures and experiences, teaching you a lot about yourself at the same time.