STAFF EDITORIAL: Seek discomfort to expand your horizons

Routine is a comforting phenomenon to many people. A daily schedule helps keep people on track with their day to day lives and can serve to help people feel more comfortable and in control. During the school year, it’s easy to fall into a normal routine. We love to do the same things over and over again because they’re familiar and normal, but how do we grow if our only mindset is to generally do the same thing every day?

As young adults, now is one of the most crucial times to create a mindset that allows us to grow as we move onto greater life events. To grow as people can mean several different things that require little to a lot of effort. Put simply, we need to stay curious and take the more difficult, yet rewarding path.

Not only does staying curious give us a better mindset for us to grow from, but it also makes us more well-rounded people. As children, some of us asked weird questions simply because we were curious and didn’t worry about how we sounded. As we got older, we began to worry about how others perceived us, which pressured us to strip ourselves of our curiosity. Now, we go about mundane routines. When we learn things, we don’t care or know how to take the information we’re learning a step further. We’re so focused on having the answers, we’ve forgotten how to ask questions.

However, while working to foster a growing mindset by staying curious is important, it is also important to put a growth mindset into action. With spring break approaching, now is a good time to start thinking about how you’re going to spend it and think about it. For those who are traveling for their spring break, avoid doing typical touristy things. Talk to local residents and learn about what life is really like at your destination. Create a more holistic picture of your travel location. You never know what you’ll learn or gain simply from talking to people.

For people who are staying home for break, don’t be afraid to do try something new. No one can possibly do all that there is to do even in their hometown. Instead of watching Netflix and hanging out with friends, go to a yoga class, go skiing, go thrift shopping, eat different foods, do something new. Break your routine and be uncomfortable. Additionally, get to know those who are closest to you. Oftentimes, we get so used to a person we’ve spent ample time with, we forget to ask them about their lives. There’s always something you don’t know about someone, even if they’re your best friend. While routine is often necessary to create a sense of stability and organization in our lives, we can’t let it be the only thing that runs it. We won’t grow unless we stay curious, and the first step to becoming curious is to simply ask a question and go from there.

This post was originally published in the March issue of The Rubicon.