From Comfort Zone to Growth Zone

My trigger for this post is this link: http://www.thearmchairgenealogist.com/2014/09/expanding-your-genealogy-comfort-zone.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheArmchairGenealogist+%28The+Armchair+Genealogist%29

This is genealogy related. I believe it could relate to anything we are passionate about. I am passionate about genealogy. However, I have been altogether too content with the comfort of my computer chair.

I was talking to Paula about New York City, and how I can get to Long Island but not to the city. I offered all my good excuses, and indeed, they are good excuses. I can get lost in my own city, let alone a big city like New York. I don't think I'd even mind prowling some of the city on foot, but that traffic intimidates me like you wouldn't believe. My hostess  feels the same way, so I can't impose on her. Take the train. It doesn't come that far onto the island. So, I stay in my and my sister-in-law's comfort zone: Riverhead to Port Jefferston Station. When brother-in-law was alive, we traveled to Montauk and the Hamptons and a bit further east. I thoroughly enjoyed the drive, the gardens, and the Roosevelt "cottage."

You know what: I am satisfied to stay in my comfort zone. But there is something wrong with that. I know my excuses are valid: I really can't ask Sister to take me where she cannot. She has her good reasons: fear and poor eyesight. It's not possible for me to go to NYC by myself, and I will wait patiently until the occasion arises that I can go there. However, I fear driving anywhere out of my comfort zone.

Paula is posting photos of Morocco. Next month, she'll be camping in the Sahara. Gives me the shakes just thinking about it. Connie and her friend (a bit younger than me but not that much) biked from Quebec City to Prince Edward Island. Pat drives anywhere in the USA or Canada and the highways don't bother her one bit, or at least, she doesn't let that hold her back. Daughter #1 has traveled to many places in Asia and across Europe, and daughter #2 boarded a plane and went to Taiwan.

I am just a travel wimp.But then again, travel is not my passion. My airline points will probably accumulate to the point where I can fly to the moon. It is not hub's passion either, so that doesn't help.

My passion is genealogy, and I can do something about that. Recently I trapised through graveyards in totally unfamiliar territory, on New Brunswick's back roads. (Back roads don't scare me.) I felt good about it. I didn't learn anything new: the list of the dead was on the computer and the lists were accurate, but I stood at the gravesites where my ancestors rest and contemplated where and who I came from, I thought, how lovely it would be to live there in the valley in the autumn, and look up at the colors. How green and verdant it would be in the spring. (How white in the winter.)

What is your comfort zone? I think genealogy. You think whatever it is you enjoy. Here are a few quotes from Lynn's link, above. Substitute genealogy for whatever word you would like.

• "We all live in a comfort zone; a place in our mind wherer we create limitations for ourselves, a place in our mind that establishes what we believe about what we can or can't do."

• "Expanding your genealogy comfort zone means taking on new challenges; challenges that may make you a little uncomfortable but would expand your knowledge and therefore your ability to grow your family history tree."

• "We were all beginners once and to become great and knowledgeable about anything requires going beyond what others are prepared to do, setting new limits for yourself and discovering new territory."

• "Rather than research from a comfort zone, find your 'genealogy growth zone' where you are challenged beyond what you've previously done."

• "Make a list of items that fall outside of your comfort zone and within your genealogy growth zone and begin to make plans to check them off. Once you start to tackle that list, you will have greater opportunity to expand your boundaries, grow your confidence and your family tree."

That was the email from Lynn that I received earlier this week. I also received an email from Thelma.
"Genealogy Research: A Beginning," to be held at the Moncton Public Library on the evening of October 14. Am I going? Yes, I am going to take my butt from this comfortable chair to a chair in the Heritage Room at the Moncton Library. Am I a beginner? No. But hey, there are new machines to read microfilm in that room. I don't know how to use them. I need to learn. I never really mastered the old ones. I need to support my Genealoy Society so I will be there for that reason. I might meet some new people. I might find some old tome that has not been microfilmed and scanned for the internet. I might learn something new or I might help someone else. Its the first thing on my list - a small step - therefore easy to cross off. The step after that? I'm thinking.

What's first on your list. Fall is a good time to make a new list and step into your growth zone. Actually, any time is a good time to take a step in a new direction.

The two photos are of myself with Connie and Shelley and Connie - the two brave ladies who cycled from Quebec City, Quebec, to Bordon-Carleton, PEI. This was my send off after an all too short visit with a dear friend and her dear friend.