Should you jump off a cliff?
I was intrigued and inspired by one of my closest friends in the Fellowship’s 2022 cohort, a computer science student at McGill, who did their internship in Vietnam in Web3 product management, and who shall remain unnamed of course. I was dumbfounded by her desire to constantly push herself outside her comfort zone and in quite an extreme manner.
I had already been living in a country where 95 percent of the people did not speak any of the languages I do, I took a week to not get lost at the train station, and it took me a month to find salt at the grocery store. Despite how much I enjoyed my first few weeks in Japan, I was basically a 6’1” toddler who couldn’t speak and didn’t know much etiquette.
Yet, I hadn’t pushed myself nearly as much outside my comfort zone as my friend had. But before I did anything crazy, I had to ask why. So, I asked my friend, “Why do you keep pushing yourself outside your comfort zone? Why do you continue doing it when you’ve had some bad experiences in the past? What motivates you to do this?”. To be perfectly candid, she gave me a royally lame answer that I can’t even remember now. Then I realized people would have different reasons for pushing themselves out of their comfort zone and would probably draw different values from their experiences. Or at least that’s what I told myself.
This article is my attempt at 1 upping my friend in explaining why you should consider escaping your comfort zone.
About 7 minutes after her magnificently boring explanation, I shoved two large pieces of raw fish in my face.
Not randomly, we were at a sashimi restaurant, so it was socially acceptable to do so.
I’ve always despised fish, despite growing up near the ocean, next to some of the supposedly best sea food. I have never liked seafood of any kind, primarily due to the ‘fishy’ smell it has that you’d smell at any fish market. My mother used to go to incredible lengths to rid the fish of the raw smell and convince me to eat it, still I’d almost always leave the house or shut my room’s door when my family decides to have fish. It had been 4 years since I even had well cooked seafood before I decided to shove the sashimi.
Personally, this took a lot of courage, after barely managing to hold it in, chew, and swallow, I went for another piece. The second one was a different kind of fish, and I thought maybe I’d like that better. It was better than the first piece but overall if given an option I would still have cooked fish.
Same preference as before when it comes to fish, so why did I share my daring, adrenaline pumped, culinary adventure?
Very importantly, I have now given quite a fair chance to raw fish. Trying two distinct kinds at a very good restaurant, in the country that the dish originated from.
Now I know what giving a fair chance to something looks like. I’ll know in the future when I have given a fair chance to anything that I’m averse. Be it new food or a career path.
A few weeks later I was asked if I wanted to go surfing, and of course I said yes. What could go wrong? I don’t know how to swim, grew up afraid of waves, and have never dipped more than my ankle in the ocean before.
I spent the day learning how to stay on the board, paddle, and get up while catching a wave. I managed to briefly ride 2 waves before promptly falling on my behind.
I realized it’s impossible to drown around people you trust. When you are embarking on a challenging venture, you will no doubt get battered, bruised, and scratched; but I can assure you from firsthand experience the people around will make sure you live to tell the tale.
Right the next day we walked the last 6 km to avoid traffic, and reach a J pop music festival in time. About halfway through the day while I was still having an amazing time, it started to rain quite heavily. I hadn’t brought a raincoat, wasn’t allowed to open my umbrella for reasons such as not accidentally poking the eyes of about 12 people within a hand’s length of me. While drenched and cold and separated from the friend, I started to question if coming here was a good choice. It was very tiring and painful, and the show would go on till late in the night, I was not exposed to Japanese music a lot before that day, couldn’t particularly say I was a fan, everyone else around me seemed to know what they were doing there. Everyone else around me was Japanese. In about 50,000 people gathered at the festival, I was the only ethnically different person. Which was understandable, the venue was quite far from major cities, it’s not a tourist attraction by any stretch, and foreigners living in Japan would not be too crazy about the music.
As someone who’s comfortable in just about any place with just about everyone, this was the first time I had felt notable imposter syndrome. Not since the popularization of air travel could some one have experienced what I did.
Over the next few hours, I tried to justify my presence at the concert to myself, until I realized there is no reason for me to do that. I was at the concert because I wanted to open my mind to new forms of art, explore less frequented places of Japan, and just have fun with a couple of my friends. I was clearly accomplishing all of that, so there was no reason for me to be worried about being the only dark-skinned person in the swarm of people. Nothing bad had happened because of that except me worrying myself.
When I try to push my limits and go beyond what I normally do, there’s a good chance I might feel like an imposter among people who do that regularly. All I must do is ask myself why I am there, not ask if I belong.
Does that mean doing adventurous, uncomfortable things are only for character development and learning life lessons?
Thanks to the day of surfing, I now have an exciting new activity for whenever I am near the ocean. Thanks to the concert, I have found 4 amazing artists and bands to listen to.
Thanks to the raw fish experience, I can turn down any future compulsion by friends to eat fish. With a signature look of superiority, I can decline saying that I’ve had sashimi in Japan and whatever they’re making me eat is a mere imitation.
To answer the question, yes, you should jump off a cliff. Make sure to do it at Sandanbeki cliffs at Wakayama, Japan. If you’re still hesitant, call me, we’ll go together, and I’ll give you just the push from behind you need.
