The most recent TED Radio Hour, "To the Edge," focused on adventurers who push themselves to their limits at the edges of the world. The program featured a polar explorer, a spelunker, a woman who rowed across oceans, and a high-wire enthusiast. Of all the stories, Roz Savage's ocean-going adventures fascinated me the most. Here was a woman who had been working in an office for many years until, one day, she decided to cross the Atlantic Ocean—in a rowboat. I mean, really, who does that?
Coincidentally, at the moment I tuned into the show, I had just been thinking about ordinary acts of bravery. My homeschooled son was away from home, living and learning for five full weeks at the Advanced Studies Program at St. Paul's School. The program is known for being intense, challenging, and extremely well loved. Past attendees (my younger daughter included) rave about it with a devotion bordering on zealotry.
My son, an introverted but socially adept teen, didn't know anyone who would be attending the program (none of his friends had applied). He had never lived away from home before, had never even attended a full-time school before. Much of what he would be experiencing would be completely new to him. Of course, he realized from the start that it wasn't going to be easy: he would need to step outside his comfort zone, but he had decided to challenge himself and go anyway.
I applauded his courage, but privately worried as much as any mother would. Granted, my son wasn't rowing across oceans or teetering across tightropes, but he was facing the unknown and willingly embracing uncomfortable experiences. Like the adventurers who were going "to the edge," he was identifying personal boundaries and attempting to go beyond them. The day before he left, he told me why he was going: "pushing myself beyond my comfort zone is the only way to grow." And with that, he shattered all the stereotypes of homeschoolers I had ever heard: "sheltered," unprepared for the "real" world, weirdly dependent on their parents. He was none of these things. Instead, at 17, he was a mature young adult, capable of assessing his own strengths and weaknesses, weighing his options, and planning an intelligent course of action.
As expected, the weeks at St. Paul's School were demanding. To use Roz Savage's words: "getting out of your comfort zone is, by definition, extremely uncomfortable." Because my son was less experienced than the schooled kids at making constant small talk with people he didn't know—he was more accustomed to lengthy conversations with close friends—he had to work a little harder at socializing in a new context. Spending all day, every day, with lots of other people was exhausting, especially for an introvert, and he had to resist the urge to shut himself in his room. In addition, the daily program was physically and intellectually challenging. Most days were long and hot (thanks to a record-breaking heat wave), and his course, Shakespeare for Performance, stretched him even further, as the director flipped the gender roles and cast the boys as women, the girls as men.
My son bravely endured, adapted and ultimately thrived. What at first seemed overwhelming gradually became familiar and routine. He discovered moments and places for the solitude he craved and consciously used those to counterbalance the intense, group-oriented activities. The initial shock of learning he would be playing Beatrice in "Much Ado About Nothing" wore off and, good-naturedly, he accepted the news that would have to wear a dress for the (public) performances. Although I had worried about him, fearing he would suffer from extreme embarrassment, he later reassured me that donning female attire provided an opportunity for the guys to bond, as they laughed at the awkwardness of tights and complained about the itchiness of wigs.
By the end of five weeks, miraculously, strangers had become friends, and a place that was hard to stay in had become a place that was hard to leave. In a less dramatic but still significant way, my son had discovered for himself the same thing that Roz Savage discovered as she rowed across the wide ocean:
"I learned a few things about fear, and one of them is that there's sort of a limit to how long you can be afraid for. And after a couple of weeks . . . you sort of get used to it, and your comfort zone expands to accommodate your new normality."Now that the program has ended and my son is back home, we are discussing his options for college. He seems less anxious about the thought of moving to a campus far from home. There's a change in him: his comfort zone has expanded, and he has grown along with it.
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