Leave your comfort zone for the future... The condition we live in and society push us to chase comfort.
The vast majority of the products and services advertised to us day and night are aimed at making us more comfortable, at making us feel less unease. TV, radio, print — in short, the media — aim to make us comfortable in order to create a consumer society.
Yet what enables development is not comfort but rather unease and struggle. Many things in the world have emerged out of struggle and unease. Would light have any meaning if there were no darkness! Light, which was once meant only to illuminate, does it not today form the very foundation of communication! The qualities that test our merit and abilities, and that develop us, grow more within an environment that challenges us. Even the smallest struggle against difficulties directs a person toward success in life. The difficulties we encounter and the struggle we put up against those difficulties make us capable in the face of these difficulties and develop our talents and skills. Comfort, on the other hand, causes many of our abilities to atrophy. To develop something new and to be able to form and revive certain abilities, we must stay somewhat removed from comfort!
A butterfly that has taken flight never returns to being a caterpillar. Because taking flight from the state of a caterpillar requires extraordinary effort. Not every caterpillar becomes a butterfly and flies. A butterfly that has become a butterfly and succeeded in flying freely has never been seen to return to its old comfortable state as a caterpillar. Everything is fine within the cocoon in which it slept comfortably. While consuming less energy as a caterpillar and living unaware of its surroundings, after becoming a butterfly it must travel much further to feed itself. Although it must actually struggle for survival once it begins to fly and becomes a butterfly, it has never been seen to return to its old life. We should not shy away from valuing the meaning of certain things and expending the energy required for them. In short, it is difficulty, rather than comfort, that will develop us. For a person to succeed, great effort is required. Effort is difficulty itself. Effort steadily and consistently directs us to mobilize our abilities. Richard Bach conveyed one of these value structures woven thread by thread around the factor of effort in a most meaningful way in his book Jonathan Livingston Seagull. It is an important work that everyone should read. Although short, it is a cornerstone carrying great depth within it. I do not know if it is possible to better express the value of effort and the peace, happiness, and love achieved at the end of the difficulties experienced along with that effort...
Friends, what I really want to emphasize here is that what will develop us is, once again, ourselves. Continually confronting ourselves with difficulties and developing our capabilities is, in short, in our own hands. Just as it is in our own hands to recognize difficulties ourselves and develop ourselves, it is likewise in our own hands to let ourselves be swept away by comfort and let our productivity atrophy. In our professional life, putting in effort to make ourselves successful is a necessity. Otherwise, it is only a matter of time before we get stuck somewhere in this relentless race. In a globalizing world, it is small details, rather than superficial values, that make a person successful. After a period in which we let ourselves be swept away by comfort and fail to develop ourselves professionally, our self-confidence will inevitably decrease as well. Being productive and successful in life and in one's profession is in our own hands. The moment we try to understand our profession and our life, we notice many of the difficulties that appear before us, and we are left facing many of them alone. Overcoming these, however, is again in our own hands, through the effort and labor we put in.
Being aware of and acting on the many problems around us and within us, whether political or social, is likewise in our own hands. Think of a snowdrop, its seed. A flower that resists storm and rain and manages to remain standing. If we think about the difficulties of nature and how it resists them, it should not be hard to understand what it endures to achieve that beauty. Yet the problems and difficulties surrounding us are not nearly as severe. Rather than putting up the necessary struggle against them, we prefer to let ourselves be swept away by comfort and remain silent within our own shell... We prefer to stay silent in the face of a handful of people drenching the world in blood at the cost of earning more money. Yet what is difficult is peace. What are we doing to overcome the difficulties around us in order to make peace flourish? Indeed, what are we doing to protect the environment for the sake of peace and for humanity to endure? In which corner of our being do we feel this responsibility as individuals? Humanity and human beings need nature and peace. The world belongs to all of us... The bombs falling around us poison life, and wherever in the world they fall, the pollution and deep scars they leave on nature will always remain the same. This pollution does not stay confined to where it falls, but spreads to every part of the world. Another pollution as heavy as environmental pollution is human pollution. Human pollution surrounds us like an armor. The cage in which humanity is held captive by the human pollution around us grows a little narrower with each passing day.
Should we stay away from comfort? Of course, the answer to this is no. But in order to achieve development, we should use our comfort zone only for resting. We should not choose comfort as a permanent way of life. If we use our comfort zone consciously, we can lay the groundwork, within that comfortable environment, for storing up strength by renewing our energy for our social, professional, and personal responsibilities that surround us. Using this space efficiently is, again, in our own hands.
If we let ourselves be swept away by a comfortable environment and choose an indifferent life, rest assured that our soul will sooner or later become trapped within a cage. The moment we notice the cage, we often realize that we are now alone. In order not to let our soul be imprisoned within a cage, we must engage in an intense struggle to defend nature, to be a defender of social peace, to be humanist, to love people, and to share beauty. This does not need to have a racial or religious basis. Discovering freedom is, again, up to us. Know that getting out of that cage, flying toward nature and beauty, and being free are in your own hands. To embrace freedom, we will need to distance ourselves somewhat from our comfortable environment. At this point, I cannot help but mention the famous thinker Fichte. Fichte stated how important freedom earned through effort is by saying: "To be free is nothing. But to become free is something far nobler!" Comfort is our perception of ourselves as free... Yet becoming free begins with being an individual, but draws its nobility and depth from society. The key to peace is in our hands. It is clear and obvious that becoming free is difficult. The foundation of becoming free must be built on social tolerance and peace. If we partially give up our comforts for the sake of social peace, there is no force that can stand against us as human beings. Humanity deserves every beauty... But in order to experience these beauties, let us recognize the difficulties surrounding us and begin to struggle for it. We have always been late... Yet we needed to act yesterday for this. Come on! Hand in hand, to make peace, the environment, and social freedom take firm root....
Dr. Hüseyin NAZLIKUL, M.D., PhD.
IFMANT = President of the International Federation of Neural Therapy
President of the Scientific Neural Therapy Regulation Association