Comfort Zones

I've determined that comfort zones are a big part of life: both finding them and getting out of them. Remember when you went from middle school to high school and it was scary and new? Then you became so comfortable and at home in high school that the thought of going away to college terrified you. That first day at college everything seemed so big and foreign and you had the "small fish in a big pond" feeling. Remember how intimidating everything was? And then what happened? College bacame your comfort zone, just as high school had been before.
I was driving around UA's campus the other day and I thought about how if I suddenly turned blind and deaf I think I could still find my way around campus. My feet would just know where to go. I walked to class down those sidewalks so many times the paths became part of my programming.
The classrooms I spent so many days in were home. The familiar smells and faces were my comfort zone. I felt safe and secure on my college campus, so far from the feelings of nervousness and displacement I felt when I first walked through the campus years before. I knew what my every day would be like.
Now as I'm on the verge of being jerked out of my comfort zone of crimson and white and put into a whole other world I'm reflecting on the importance of getting out of that zone we get stuck in. Of course the easy thing to do would be to stay where we've grown accustomed to being and find comfort in the routine we've established. But getting out of that zone and throwing yourself into something new and scary is part of living. We can never fully experience life unless we're constantly putting ourselves in uncomfortable situations.
Eventually those news places will become comfortable. I wonder if that's when it's time to move on from that? I wonder when it's time to settle into one zone? Or is it about having one place comfortable to come home to but continuing to see new places and experience new things?
I don't know what the balance is, but I know that when I become comfortable I let my guards down and I let my standards fall a bit. It seems like I don't try as hard as I should when I'm in familiar circumstances. Keeping myself on my feet is the best way for me to perform at the level I know I can. I do better when I'm uncomfortable because I feel like I have to prove myself to everyone. Routine makes me lazy.
Maybe not everyone thinks that way. I don't know.