by Worker Bee

It is easy to get stuck in a routine, easy to choose one place in life and forget how to leave. Just because you don't sit alone at home does not necessarily mean that you actually do new things. I would argue, in fact, that most people, no matter what they do with their life, do fall into the habit of life, instead of the action of life. Not everyone, mind you, some people will likely always be pushing themselves out of their comfort zones. I believe that these people are more of a rarity than they should be, however.

The reason that I'm thinking about this concept is that I have a teacher this year who likes giving his students an unusual assignment. For each quarter of the school year, he requires his students to complete 10 "stretch marks", or new things, that push them out of their normal zone. Not only do we have to do new things, we also have to accrue evidence, such as photographs, tickets, and programs, and do a page long write up about each of our stretch marks.

Now, a stretch mark will mean different things to different people. It might be seeing a movie or reading a book that gives you a new way of looking at the world. For a strict carnivore, becoming a vegetarian for a week would be a new experience. For someone easily sensory overloaded like myself, going to a concert can be quite a stretch, while for others, sitting down with a piece of paper and writing a poem could be an intimidating t ask.

In other words, we all have different comfort zones, but we also have our own unique discomfort zones. And what I'm doing is challenging you to look outside the routine, and try something new. For over the course of this school year I have found that despite the fact that these "stretch marks" can make for a rather annoying assignment, overall the concept is incredibly valuable. I have found that my discomfort zones are interesting places to inhabit, at least temporarily, and that by doing so, I have learned much about myself.

I hope to make a monthly column in the Ye Olde Ink Blot, each month writing about a different mind stretching experience that I have had, for I have no plans of stopping stretching myself when I leave this class in a couple of months.

This is the end of this article, but this issue does also contain the first installment of this series on self stretching!