Recently, while reading a book by Alain de Botton titled How Proust Can Change Your Life, I was convicted of an uncomfortable truth: I am living a half-life. If we’re being melodramatic here, we could call it a wasted life. Days disappear into the past, yet I don’t really regret their passing. And often I don’t regret the hours wasted lounging on my stiff futon in my shabbily decorated dorm room watching previous seasons of Gilmore Girls and The Office on Netflix. However, Proust warns against such negligent living, advocating a different approach to our limited days.
When confronted with the scenario of an imminent cataclysm and asked how he would confront his last days, Proust marveled that “life would suddenly seem wonderful to us if we were threatened to die… Just think of how many projects, travels, love affairs, studies, it – our life – hides from us, made invisible by our laziness which, certain of a future, delays them incessantly.”
Granted, in his day, Proust also spent an inordinate amount of downtime lounging on a similarly uncomfortable piece of furniture. However, his hours were not lost on the eccentricities of Dwight Shrute and Lorelai Gilmore. Instead, this esteemed, mustached Frenchman devoted his days to penning a 3,000-page masterpiece, In Search of Lost Time. Perhaps we need to heed Proust’s warning and smack ourselves out of our senseless stupors, embracing the potential that crouches behind our daily distractions. (If you’re craving more of Proust’s reflections on life, check out Alain de Botton’s How Proust Can Change Your Life — it’s like having an incredibly witty therapist at your disposal.)
However, once I acknowledged that I’m living a half-life, the question remained — what does it look like to live a fuller, less inhibited life? My schedule doesn’t offer much time to jet off to see Big Ben over the weekend or the Pyramids of Giza over spring break (but you can check out the wonderfully photoshopped proof of my travels below).
Between classwork, extracurricular activities and internship responsibilities, I barely have time to eat all of my major food groups (My friends repeatedly remind me that Strawberry Pop-Tarts do not suffice as a serving of fruit.) 
Nevertheless, I have neglected the checkbox “small acts of radical living” in my daily planner for far too long.
Living outside one’s comfort zone looks different for everybody. For some individuals, this takes the form of extreme twerking on YouTube (and catching on fire for Jimmy Kimmel’s devious sake). Miley Cyrus’s comfort zone appears to have expanded to nude dancing on giant wrecking balls (read how she continues to defend the music video’s integrity despite the tsunami tide of critical feedback here). For one of my favorite YouTube bloggers, Andrew Hales, the term “comfort zone” is no longer a part of his vocabulary:
Although Andrew appears slightly unbalanced in his endeavors to reach out to other students on campus, should we not strive to model his confidence in our interactions with others? Could we similarly learn to be genuine and spontaneous in our actions, no matter how trivial? Whether one chooses to run through a sprinkler on campus for a study break (as I did last night), engage in conversation with a stranger, or undertake a lofty goal, taking chances often teaches us to enjoy each day.
Oddly, while in the midst of working on this entry, I unwrapped a nougat of knowledge in the form of Dove Chocolate. The wrapper coincidentally states: “Have no limits today. Love, Dove.” Somehow, Dove Chocolate always manages to act as a sort of prophetic therapy.
So, what will you do to “have no limits today”?
Love, Hannah
Without Walls 