Cliches

Have you ever tried googling cliches? Why would you, some would ask... Heck I don't know, just because?

Two particular cliches are completly overused in everyday conversation, as far as I am concerned. I'm talking about "Comfort Zone" and "Step outside the box". Who started these phrases, and why? Better still why do we hear them as frequently as we do?

Beats me; but here's what I found when I googled them.

"Comfort Zone"... spa beauty treatment is the first thing that came up on a google search, followed by Spa beauty products, and message therapy. Wikipedia sums it up this way. "A behavioural state within which a person operates in an anxiety-neutral condition." Huh???? Wikipedia also disclaims by noting the following..."Sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations!"

I knew it!

"Steping outside the box"... the first two things that come up with this google search are realted to Alternative Cancer Treatments and a book that has been written titled "Step outside the box."

The third search is an article that mentions "Thinking outside the box," and "Stepping outside the box" both in the same paragraph. Confused? Yeah, me too...

So what I want to know is... why would you step into a box to begin with? Having said that, if you stepped in, of course you'd step back out.... so the whole thing is moot!

Comfort zone and an anxiety-neutral condition make a bit of better sense, but why can't we simply say, what makes you happy, or what makes you relax? Why do we have to have a "Confort Zone"? Can we only experience an anxiety-neutral conditon in this Zone? Can we have more than one Zone? So many questions, with no real answers... and who really cares anyway.?

I can just hear my mother now; I think she'd say our Comfort Zone had something to do with lazziness. Forget being in your "Comfort Zone", admit it... you are just too lazy to change your habbits! Stepping out of the box would have made no sense to her at all.

Needless to say, I'm going to drop both sayings, if indeed I ever used them to begin with. Good old plain English works pretty well for me. I like to do things that make me happy, whether they occur in a zone or in a box. And yeah Mom... sometimes I'm still just too darn lazy to change what I'm doing... but she already knew that too...

Well I feel so much better now that I've cleared this up. Have a great day, everyone!

Winter Wheat Prologue tomorrow...