Kuwait: One Big Comfort Zone
A story of how comfort could be mistaken for happiness.
Insert a random outing in Kuwait, a group of friends got together for dinner in one of the bazillion restaurants in the country. Between eating and taking pictures of the food, these guys were normally conversing on numerous surface-level topics; except for one who seemed distant and preoccupied with another topic, he was zoned-out as usual. This guy had a particular topic concerning him for a while of which he grew weary of debating in his head, so he finally decides right at that moment to get his friends’ verdict on the subject. He proceeds by suddenly springing back into reality and interrupting his friend’s mundane desert-drifting story by addressing the group with: “Hey guys, have you ever thought of leaving Kuwait for good?”
The guys look at each other with puzzlement, wondering how random his question was. “Why would you want to leave?” One of the friends asked him back with a partial curiosity about his inclination. However, what this friend meant to ask was:
“Why would you want to leave your family and live by yourself elsewhere? Why would you want to leave your 3-story house with its 4 maids, cook, and 2 drivers? Why would you want to leave your exotic car, your 3-story house, your boat, jet-ski, and motorcycle? Why would you want to leave your job that as much as you become negligent in, you won’t ever get laid off from? Why would you want to leave your anxiety-free lifestyle?”
All of these underlying questions, were implied subtly in the aforementioned question. Their friend, losing his train of thoughts, replies shoddily with: “I don’t know, it seems fun.” Failing to capture their attention, the guys dismiss his topic and go back to the desert-drifting story.
Later that night, our friend lying on his bed with the topic still lingering in his head, thinks about his friend’s question in hindsight:
Why would I want to leave? Cause I don’t want to go through ‘the motions’ day-in & day-out anymore. Cause I’m sick and tired of being spoon-fed in every department of my life. Cause my idea of living fully does not involve sitting around in a Dewaniya for the whole day nor wandering aimlessly in a mall. Cause the idea of a daily grind here would involve going out for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Cause I don’t want to be caught-up in a status-obsessed, pretentious society. Cause I don’t want to depend on a ‘wasta’ to get somewhere in life. Cause unlike what you guys think, comfort is not equated with happiness—in fact, the opposite might be true. The best things in life require a bit of discomfort at first, take child labor for example (Not that I want to go through one). I know I sound too cynical, but this is the truth that we all know, yet won’t acknowledge. I love my country, I really do; but life begins outside your comfort zone, and I want to experience life.
Deciding that enough thinking has been done for the day, he turns off his bed lamp to go to sleep, as he and his friends are planning to skip work together tomorrow and go jet-ski riding in the morning.
