Everything I have been reading recently has focused on courage. A happy coincidence? I don’t think so.

I’m a senior in college this year. To me, that sounds a lot more like a confession of fear than a celebration of a milestone.

I am preparing for a transitional stage of my life, and to be honest, I’m freaking out just a little bit. Ok, a whole lot. I’m not ready to begin this whole “adulting” thing in the real world.

However, my roommate’s dad sent her a text this week that blew me out of the water:

“You can be comfortable or courageous, but you cannot be both.”

What a little nugget of wisdom. I love it when I get the chance to hear things like that. It further confirms my belief that inspiration can come when you need it the most.

I think about all the times I had the choice to be comfortable or courageous.

The main one was my choice to go off to college.

Unlike most, I wasn’t ready to leave home. I was comfortable in my small town. However, at my parents urging, I decided to go to GCSU.

Now THAT was scary.

Then, I rushed a sorority.

Then, I began putting my own personal writings up for the whole world and their mamas to see.

I began taking hold of those opportunities that I would have never had, had I stayed in my comfort zone.

Fast forward a year and a half, and I can tell you that I fall in love with college every day. I have been tested in just about every way in the past year and a half, and I have been scared to death for a good 90 percent of it. But guess what?

I have grown more in the past year and a half than I have in the 20 years that proceeded it.

When you are scared to wit's end, you are forced to make adjustments. To get involved. To stare your fears in the face and actually do something about them.

Sure, comfort is good; it makes us feel those warm fuzzies inside. However, courage, comfort’s chosen enemy, creates growth.

This is simply something that comfort cannot provide.

I am so comfortable here in college, but the very unfortunate fact of the matter is that to stay somewhere where I am comfortable does not grow me as a person.

Therefore, after this year, I will move to graduate school (scary) and then to the gladiator’s arena that is high school education (what is scarier?!).

My hope for my own life is that I am constantly putting myself in those situations where I am not comfortable in order to cultivate myself professionally, physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.

It will be scary every single step of the way, but I think that personal development is one of the most important things you could invest in.

So, if you’re like me and you’re in or nearing up on one of those transitionary parts of your life, I want you to know that you can, in fact, do this.

Things look a whole lot less scary from the other side, and you will vastly improve your life by doing forcing yourself to be courageous.

After all, courage and comfort are both choices.

It is okay to be scared, but it is not okay to let your fear force you into a corner of complacency. A habit of complacency is one of the most difficult to break.

At times, you will fail. You will disappoint yourself and find yourself disappointed in other people. You will probably embarrass yourself (I do it every day!). You will get discouraged. But I can guarantee that you will be better for it.

Get out of your box and those lines you have drawn for yourself, and rather than looking for inspiration from your comfort zone, be an inspiration in your courageousness.

“Courage is just fear that’s said its prayers"- David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest.