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Nothing meaningful ever comes out of sticking in a comfort zone

Wednesday November 14 2018
anan

The late Kofi Annan: Just as this deadly rifle was turned into a guitar, people can be inspired to create change for the betterment of society. PHOTO | AMUEL KUBANI | AFP

By WALE AKINYEMI

Two great motivators for human beings are the motivation towards the avoidance of pain and the motivation of gain. As long as there is no threat of pain or promise of a greater gain, people will stay just where they are.

When a person has worked so hard to get into the comfort zone and the zone has no threat or pain there will be no motivation to leave, hence the reason why a lot of people stay there.

We live in a society where conformity is programmed into our minds as we grow up. Right from when we were children, we were taught to conform.

We had to wear school uniform because we all had to look the same. We were told how to do our hair, the colour of socks to wear and even the type of shoes to wear.

We all had to have the exact same answers for the teachers’ questions for us to be right. Anything other than what the teacher told us was wrong.

In essence, we were conforming to the teachers’ level of thought. There is no way on earth that a person who grew up in such an environment can become a natural disruptor for to do that would mean rebelling against the system of conformity. Rebellion was the ultimate crime of my youth.

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We had this huge black and white television set. And of course, there was nothing like a remote control.

You had to walk to the TV to do anything you wanted with it. The concept of raising the volume or changing channels from afar was foreign.

Tell-tale white spot

There was actually no alternative channel. We had only one station, which began transmission at 6pm, starting with the national anthem, and closed at midnight with the national anthem.

When you switched on the TV, you had to wait for a few seconds before it finally came on. The same thing happened when you switched it off.

I got into a lot of trouble for this very reason. My father did not understand the concept of play. We were allowed to watch television only for short periods on weekends. We had to read (or pretend to read) all day, every day, even when he was not around.

Of course, being the rebel that I was, I did not find that a very attractive option and so when he was out of the house, I would watch television.

However, I was very attentive and so the minute I heard the sound of his car driving in, I would quickly switch off the set; but then there was always a tell-tale sign — a white spot at the centre of the TV which would linger for a few minutes after it was switched off.

As soon as my dad came in and saw that white spot, he would immediately know that I had been watching television instead of reading. I would then endure the beating of my life.

The television set of today bears no resemblance to that of yesterday. Similarly the phone of today bears no resemblance with that of yesteryear.

However, when we look around our schools, we will discover that the classroom of today is not too different from the classroom of many years ago and therein lies our problem.

Have you noticed that some of the greatest inventors of our time had the same thing in common: Many of them had to pull themselves out of that system of conformity.

People whose thinking have been shaped by the past cannot raise people to think differently. A people who have been conditioned to conform cannot suddenly become disruptors and they will not survive in the world shaped by disruption.

Globally acclaimed

Faith does come by hearing and people who have heard of the virtues of conformity will automatically have faith in conformity. They need to begin to hear new things and even do them differently.

A Kenyan company called BRCK was named among the TIME 50 genius companies of 2018. Quite a number of globally acclaimed innovations have come out of Kenya. How many students schooling in East Africa know about this? These are the things that should be taught to inspire the next generation and show them what is possible on the world stage.

Those who do not open their minds to see a comfort greater than the present levels of comfort will be prisoners of comfort.

Those who do not dare to open their minds to feel the potential pain of irrelevance will also be prisoners of comfort. Being a prisoner of comfort is not a, so to speak, a comfortable situation. Prisoners of comfort are also easy targets for disruption.

When you are a prisoner of comfort your disruption is imminent and you will eventually be blown out of relevance into oblivion.

The choice ultimately is yours.

Wale Akinyemi is the chief transformation officer, PowerTalks

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