There's a tale about a man sitting on his porch with his dog.

The neighbor across the street hears the dog howling for several minutes, and his curiosity gets the best of him, so he approaches the old man. He asks the old man: “why is your dog howling in pain?”

The old man responds by saying: “because the dog is laying on a nail.”

Perplexed, the neighbor asks: “why doesn’t the dog just get up and move to another spot on the porch?”

The old man takes another sip of lemonade, smiles, thinks about his response and says.... “it doesn’t hurt bad enough!”

As dyslexics over 30, we're often that dog - howling about our challenges yet staying planted on the very nails causing our pain.

We've mastered the art of being just uncomfortable enough to complain, but not uncomfortable enough to actually move.

The Comfortable Art of Self-Limitation 

Your brain's full of tricks. Neuroscientists call a good chunk of your noggin's behavior "protection," but let's be honest: it's just serving up excuses with a sweet side of comfort zone. 

Most of us know exactly where we're stuck or at least - how to find out. We've heard of tools that can help us, which skills could open doors and which beliefs are holding us back. 

Yet, we just prefer the familiar discomfort over the scary unknown of actually doing something about it.

Finding What Matters

This isn't about fixing everything you struggle with. It's about recognizing when a challenge is standing between you and something that genuinely matters to you.

When we avoid learning new tech that could unleash our creativity or skip networking events that could connect us to opportunities, we're letting our comfort zones shrink our potential.

The most powerful question isn't "What am I bad at?" but rather "What’s possible if I push through this discomfort?"

The Triple Threat of Untapped Potential

There are three big ways we LEX keep ourselves comfortably uncomfortable:

The "AI Is Too Complex" Shuffle:

If dyslexia slows your writing or speaking down, good news: AI can carry that weight now.

Dyslexics spend hours struggling with emails and presentations while AI could handle the heavy lifting in seconds.

Instead of embracing these game-changing tools, why are we still manually formatting documents the old way?

The irony? We'll complain about how long tasks take while actively avoiding the very solutions designed for brains like ours. Meanwhile, the tools that could literally read and write for us collect digital dust like abandoned gym equipment.

If you've got bigger goals than grammar, imagine what you could create once comfortable with the biggest technological innovation of your life so far.

The "Staying in My Lane" Blues

Curiosity is the enzyme that breaks down the walls of our comfort zones.

Without it, our worlds gradually shrink until our "lane" becomes more like a box.

The dyslexic brain thrives on connections and patterns. Yet somehow we convince ourselves to stick to what we know. No new hobbies. No skill-stretching. No unfamiliar social scenes.

The comfort zone gradually goes from protective bubble to maximum security prison. We create routines where we know exactly what disappointments to expect rather than risking unexpected ones.

This isn't about forcing yourself into exhausting social situations if you're an introvert or pretending to love activities that genuinely don't interest you.

It's about recognizing when "that's not for me" is actually "that's unfamiliar and therefore scary."

3 Truths You Can Bet On

✅ Every skill that now feels comfortable was once terrifying

✅ Every relationship that now feels essential was once unknown

✅ Every tool you now rely on was once intimidating.

The "Negative Confidence" Solo

This is where we truly excel - being absolutely, positively CERTAIN about what we can't do. "I'll never be good at [insert skill]" becomes our battle cry, worn like a badge of honor.

These limitations have become a core part of our identity.

We don't just believe in these  limitations - we defend them with the intensity of someone protecting their most valuable possession.

We've turned our struggles into personality traits, our challenges into character.

The most dangerous thing about Negative Confidence is how it masquerades as self-awareness.

"I'm just being realistic," we tell ourselves, as if accepting limitation without question is somehow more honest than challenging it.

But here's the uncomfortable truth: Some of our most deeply held beliefs about what we "can't" do have never been properly tested.

They're based on experiences from school, comments from others, or moments of “failure” that keep us Stuck like Chuck.

Your dyslexic brain has already overcome odds that would stagger most people.

Don't let Negative Confidence steal the very resilience that got you this far.

Move Over Rover

So whaddaya say?

This week, pick one nail you’ve been sitting and howling on and move over just an inch.

How does it feel?