Comfort zone is killing you slowly. Comfort means to get with your strength. “Com” is Latin for “with,” and “fort” from the Latin word “fortis,” which means “strength.” Technology becomes smarter, and increasingly takes on tasks that were once exclusively reserved for humans. For example, how many phone numbers of your friends and family do you know at the top of your head? Chances are very few since your smartphone takes care of this job for you. Never again do we have to remember birthdays, because Facebook sends us a timely reminder. Never again do we have to commit a road track to memory, because modern GPS systems ensure that we will never get lost. More and more of our mental faculties are being outsourced to computers, robbing us of the necessary experience to develop and train these skills and faculties ourselves. But far, far more troublesome than the collective decay of our mnemonic abilities is our growing intolerance with discomfort itself. While we constantly redefine and narrow down what it means to be comfortable, we also widen the space in which we feel uncomfortable. In other words, the more we get used to comfort, the more we get alienated by discomfort. As Biswas-Diener writes “What most folks don’t realize is that this seemingly natural attraction to an easier life is rooted in avoidance of discomfort.” And once we go down the road of avoiding discomfort, we open up a whole new bag of problems. The intellectual stress of engaging in a rational discussion will improve your level of critical thinking. The creative stress of composing a piece of music will improve your sense for rhyme and rhythm. Stepping outside of your comfort zone is key to discovering your passion, accomplishing your goals, and finding happiness.