To piggyback off your example to make a point, 1) public speaking: preach to the choir or speak your mind? 2) picking up women: be a nice guy or be assertive about your needs? 3) socializing/making friends: manipulate to get ahead or be loyal and get snubbed? 4) lifting weights: long day at work, go to the gym anyways? 5) starting a business: when to quit your job or when to admit that your project is a dead-horse 6) doing sales work: where is the fine-line between lying and marketing? 7) learning to program: programming before hoes or the other way around? (sadly I took up this ill-advised vocation at an age before I realized the importance of women).

Pushing ourselves beyond the comfort zone most likely reveal ugly truth about ourselves that our ego have been trying to protect ourselves from. I found that what I thought were world's injustices directed at me were really my own insecurities and sheer laziness; or my notion that I'm a nice and considerate person is really sour grapes that I didn't have X; and in the position of getting X, I could be as selfish and manipulative as the next guy who has X, whom I previously vilified. Stepping out of comfort zone reveals who we really are and sometimes the truth is ugly.

I see a lot of straw men in your examples. They are almost all cases of how to handle the success you receive from leaving your comfort zone.

In all of these things, you strike a balance and find what is moral or healthy--that is part of the journey. I wouldn't want to use possible straw-men morality as an excuse for continued ineptness. Like white hat security pros, you can know how to do something but choose not to do it.

mind telling more about your experience on this? how far would you say "getting out of your comfort zone" did you reach? how did programming affected your life (seems like you meant you spent too much time doing so before getting to that... how was it?)

Personally after college, I had four goals: 1) be able to bench-press 200lb, 2) play guitar in a band/be able to improvise, solo, play at performance tempo etc., 3) be able to play pick-up basketball and win more games for my team than lose, 4) to approach women and other people in bar and other urban scenario's and f-close or the social equivalent.

No, I haven't completely achieved all of my goals although I have gone very far in all of them. But I'm not as anxious about them nor about admitting on my shortcomings on my goals in public; like in programming, at a point you develop a sense of confidence that even on a long programming project, it's only a matter a time that you will finish it. It's just a sequence of iterations of coding & debugging.

How did programming affect my life? It made me a nerd with inferiority-superiority complex who on one hand views average human beings as automatons who let their sense of social insecurity get in their way; and who on the other hand is insecure himself, requires constant social re-assurances, stroking of the ego and (most importantly) sexual gratification. And for that, I'm eternally indebted to programming.

I couldn't agree more with the sentiment that - often - stepping outside your comfort zone can lead to good things. However there has to be some reason you want to do it, despite it making you uncomfortable. Otherwise the fact that you're not being yourself will overshadow whatever it is you're trying to achieve.

I made myself go back to university when my first experience was not successful, I'm now on track for a great degree. I am in the process of chasing a few business opportunities, and I'm putting myself in the position of a marketing man. This has already lead to some promising leads. I also tried to be a bit more open minded and non-judgemental, and socialise in ways I didn't previously, and I made some great friends as a result.

Your life is in many ways, very much in your own hands.

> Otherwise the fact that you're not being yourself will overshadow whatever it is you're trying to achieve.

I view my "self" as fluid, and whatever I want me to be.

You bifurcate "I" and "me" implying the former can reliably create such a state in the latter; if this is the case, then what's actually at work in forming your "me"?

I used two different terms to aid the reader, but I and me are just pointers to self and like a ruby class running metaprogramming on self, one can rewrite oneself. The new code still comes from the self, though.

not felicitous to say the least. you're ignoring my point that your self is formed by something which also has a form that you're ignoring since you're so in love with its ability to change.

Of course you have to have some reason to go outside your comfort zone. If anyone has ever suggested otherwise, they have misunderstood the concept completely. The point is to grow as a person and achieve proficiency in an area you want, but which doesn't come naturally to you.

You're not supposed to be awkward and uncomfortable just for the hell of it.