I, a 10-year-old kid, sat in the classroom of a math abacus class with 30 other kids and… my mom.

I clenched her hand, controlling my tears that had barely stopped.

It was the first time I was taken to an extracurricular maths class after being pampered at home for all of the few winters I had seen.

We entered the class a few minutes ago. My mom and I gazed around the room of 30-40 students all staring back at us. I started crying as soon as my mom dropped me off there. I didn’t want to be alone. I had never been alone.

I kept crying while the entire class looked at me. My eyes were open yet I could see nothing as tears blurred my vision and rolled down my cheeks creating a puddle on the ground.

“Don’t worry. I’ll stay here with you,” my mom comforted.

We strolled to a bench with two empty seats. My mom smiled at a kid asking him to make space for us. He moved and we took our seats in that room.

It was a peculiar sight- me, my mom, and 30 other kids learning the abacus.

I hated change. I probably still do. The fear of getting out of my comfort zone at home tolled way too heavily on me. I had cried on my first day of school as well. Something very real seemed to pull me back home, to my comfort zone every time I encountered change.

At the age of 21, I can now, fortunately, go to places without my mom, and all the places I have been to have eventually become my comfort zone.

The school I cried to not go to became the place where I found friends who got me into coding. The abacus class that I went to with my mom made me fall in love with math. The second school I was anxious to enter was where I found my best friends. The city I skipped college for gave me a lifetime’s worth of lessons. The college that made me homesick is where I founded my startup.

Every piece of change I’ve ever faced has eventually become the very comfort I was reluctant to leave the next time. Comfort isn’t something you find or seek. Comfort isn’t something you’re born with. Comfort isn’t instant or unattainable.

Comfort is what change eventually transpires to. Comfort is what happens right after the change. Comfort is change after a period of time.

Comfort IS change.