Stepping Into The Uncomfortable Zone
Rafid is sweating like he has never sweated before. It would be hard to tell whether he took a shower this morning or just 5 minutes ago. All suited up and standing in front of a class room full of thirty other business school students and the teacher of the class, he’s having a hard time coming up with what he’s going to say.
Even though he has prepared for this moment the entire night before.
Luckily, he is the second presenter in his team, and his team mate is currently going on with the introduction part. Within a minute or two, it will be Rafid’s turn and therefore he has a leeway to prep up his mind. Rafid’s mind keeps racing, he can feel his heart beating at a rapid, violent pace and yet he tries hard to keep a smile painted up on his face. His biggest crush, Rubana, is also in the room, currently looking down at her cellphone. Rafid can’t let her pass by. Good is not enough, he must make a great impression.
It’s not that he has never given a public speech before. He has debated a few times and also has an average understanding of English. But today, in order to impress his crush who is sitting in the audience, he has planned to deliver in proper American accent. Being a student of Bengali Medium School & College and now hoping to date a girl from English Medium School, he felt he needed to show his sharp side.
He must get the chance to get in her tea. And what better way than to ace the first presentation of the semester? It had all seemed like a good idea.
But what if he fails now?
What if his accent sounds terribly fake and everyone starts laughing?
He’ll be known as that dorky guy who bit on more than he could chew.
30 seconds left until it’s Rafid’s turn.
A fan of role-playing games, Rafid suddenly sees two paths emerge in front of him. There’s one that is very risky and therefore uncomfortable; and the other one that is less risky, less scary. These two paths are pointing him towards two different pathways. The scary path has Rubana standing at the far end, but that’s not where it ends. The furthest end of this path leads to his dreams of beating his middle-class economic status and working in a multinational company with an international team.
The other is leading him towards a path where he uses his regular accent and gives an average presentation, Rubana sees him as just another class mate, and at the furthest end awaits an average paying job at a local company where Rafid is having to slave off to please his boss and some day in between the laborious hours, thinking about this very moment and wondering what would have happened if he had taken the scary path.
The voice of his teammate suddenly shatters this micro-moment of hallucination. “Now my teammate, Rafid is going to take it over from here.”
Rafid clenches his fist, walks up to the center spot and takes the previous presenter’s space and takes a deep breath and then smiles at the audience, because when you are taking the uncomfortable path, you might as well take some extra Oxygen in your lungs and you must not show what’s going on in your head, “I must see how this ends if I take the uncomfortable path.”
We face such situations every day in our lives. They might not be as dramatic as the young man faced in our story, but they do have a big impact in our lives in the long run. And unfortunately, many of us give in because it’s uncomfortable. This happens because we don’t realize that great achievements are not meant to be comfortable.
If it was comfortable, everyone would achieve greatness.
The fact that it’s not makes greatness precious, difficult, and widely respected.
Rafid might not end up with Rubana or land the job of his dream just by pulling off a presentation in American accent, but he will find out what he’s made of. That’s why we need to go for the uncomfortable situation and aim higher than our current performance. That’s how we can make our way towards exponential growth.
