To be or not to be, that indeed is the question.

Everyday we face a lot of questions. Whether to wake up now or later, whether to have breakfast or not etc These are more trivial and more pertained to the individual. Then come the questions at a social level. Whether to drop your mother at her work or not, to overtake the car in front or not, whether to overshoot a signal or not. How do we decide the answers to these questions?

While we are on the bed, we enjoy the comfort of the mattress and take the route of procrastination. The question of breakfast, even though it depends on whether we got up early enough or not, is decided by the time factor. Then the same applies to dropping our dear ones. Ultimately time seems to be the devil that presses us on the roads. We try to compensate by trying to beat the traffic, overshoot signals and putting all around us in danger. The funny thing is it all starts with an impulsive decision to simply sleep longer.

Once I said to myself I am reaching my workplace an hour early come what may. I did and the difference was striking. I found myself keeping calm and travelling the same route in the same time. This time, I kept my cool to let those in a hurry ahead on the road, wait for all the signals as required before the stop line and still spend the same travel time. What was so different this time?

The mere thought that we are in the comfort zone lets us be gracious, courteous and at the same time punctual. I also found myself calm in handling those questions pertaining to possible chores to be done on the way. So if this zone is so good, why can't we maintain things in the comfort zone? The problem I think is once we are in that comfort zone we soon start to get laid back in our approach. We push the limits of the comfort zone unintentionally for the worse and ultimately get back to that place where we blame time, time and again.

So flitting in and out of the zone - how does that work? Well, I used to work in a school. My timings are as fixed as they can be. I have observed myself that whenever I need to do something extra in the morning before school begins - could be something as simple as bringing few papers from the store cupboard - I consciously plan to leave early and even though I may not leave by the exact required time, I still fall in the comfort zone. The thing is this work has to be something absolutely urgent for the day and you really care about that being done. So you have to do something that you usually don't do,

So how often do these days occur? Again for me, these are days after long vacations where I need to be early to pull the covers off the shelves and fold them away neatly. These are more forced upon rather than self-motivated. so the right question would be "How often do you want these days to occur?" Even though the answer "Everyday" may escape our mouth, the difficulty behind that is not seen.

I mentioned that we tend to push at our comfort zone with regard to our travel plans. I think the pushing of our comfort zone is the key, but at a more broader perspective - the work we do at home or anywhere else (even travel is part of this work). We need to constantly think and do what is that one extra thing we can do to make whatever we did or are doing better. Working out of your comfort zone is an often used phrase. I've found that whenever I do that keeping in mind the capabilities I have and not worrying about the end result, the job seems to go on well enough. To be or not to be working out of your comfort zone - that is the question you need to answer for yourself!