Outside Your Literary Comfort Zone

My husband and I recently celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary. And, as is customary for us millennials, he posted a sweet Facebook tribute complete with a montage of photos from the last two decades. It was lovely, heartfelt, and I genuinely appreciated it.

However, in every single picture, I have a different hairstyle either in length, cut, or color. From a distance, it looked like my husband had spent twenty years with a rotation of different women.

A few weeks ago, I cut a woman’s hair who had worn the exact same style for twenty five years. She wanted something new but worried that she might not like it. The thought of stepping outside her comfort zone was just too scary and I ended up just trimming up her ends.

A lot of us feel this way about hair, about life, and yes, even about books.

Some people are die hard genre loyalists. I only read fantasy. I only read sci fi. I only read rom coms. Nonfiction or nothing.

And there is nothing wrong with that. Absolutely nothing.

There is also nothing wrong with eating cereal for every meal of the day. And sometimes, in this house, we do.

But isn’t there something refreshing about trying something new? A new food, a new hairstyle, or traveling somewhere unfamiliar. Research shows that variety really is the spice of life. Trying new things helps you learn and experience the world around you.

I was part of a book club where every woman enjoyed different genres, which meant I ended up reading books I wouldn’t normally have picked up on my own. One was about a woman in the 1800s sent to a women’s asylum (no wonder women didn’t dare complain about mental health). Another was a biography of a serial killer in Chicago (new fear unlocked). Another followed the lives of Serian refugees (I don’t know if I have cried more reading a book). These were books I would NEVER have grabbed off a shelf because I didn’t think I would enjoy reading them.

But guess what? I read them. And you know what happened?

I still didn’t really like them.

And that’s okay.

Because my mind was expanded and my imagination enriched. I now use those experiences in my stories and in my life. Reading outside your comfort zone doesn’t have to convert you into a new genre. It just gives you more depth and empathy in your thinking.

Trying something new doesn’t demand that you love it. It simply nudges you out of your comfort zone. Maybe you’ll discover you hate it. Maybe it will become something wonderful you can’t imagine living without.

Either way, you should absolutely try that new hairstyle. It might look amazing.