Your Comfort Zone Will Kill You

by ​Lucas Garrido

​I've always been a guy who doesn't think about the future. I like to enjoy the road, savoring the day-to-day without worrying about making important decisions. As they say, journey before destination.
This mindset has always worked for me, and I have always considered myself happy.
Like most stories, mine begins with a curious child. A boy who was fascinated by the world he lived in, and would rather read books about electrons and protons than princesses and knights. To top it off, my father was a mathematician, and - due to genetic inheritance, I guess - I have always been good with math.
During high school, I had an extraordinary physics teacher who transmitted his passion and enthusiasm with every explanation. He is the real reason why I ended up studying physics, otherwise, I think I would have probably ended up a mathematician like my father.
To this day, I am still convinced that studying physics is the best decision I have ever made in my life! I have enjoyed every day of the degree without pausing to think about what would happen when it was over. I didn't want to face the end. To have to look for a job and fall into a routine, to stop learning new things, to leave behind my inner child... So, I finally enrolled in a nuclear physics master's degree. I had to keep learning!
This, however, changed everything. The master's had a double degree option, which allowed me to do the second half abroad and obtain two degrees for one. Now, I had to face what I had been avoiding all along... Thinking about the future. Making a decision. I couldn't just let it go, I had to stop and think.
And I was afraid. I did not want to leave my country, which I loved so much. I did not want to start from scratch in another place, where I couldn't even communicate with people, because I wouldn’t know the language. Surviving there for a year. Why couldn't I continue as I was, a leaf drifting in a gentle breeze?
I was about to refuse the offer... But then, one ordinary day scrolling through Instagram, I went through a random post. It was a picture of neon lights that read "Your comfort zone will kill you". I stared at the image for a while, my brain replaying it over and over again.
And then I understood everything. I had to keep learning! Not just about physics or atomic nuclei, but about life. Evolve or die, as it has been since the beginning of life. So I mustered up all the courage I could and got on that plane with a single suitcase, half full of clothes and half full of fear and insecurity.
It has already been five years since the best year of my life. A year of self-discovery, of getting to know new cultures, new ways of living. A year full of joy and learning. Because in my case, one thing leads to the other.
I am writing this now as a PhD student. Life is not easy (and this could be another blog post) but I keep learning. As I have always been doing. Because more than a physicist or a researcher, I am a learner.

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