"Comfort is frequently the enemy of greatness. When you choose to default to comfort, you're choosing to be less effective in your life."
- Todd Henry
"I'm continually trying to make choices that put me against my own comfort zone. As long as you're uncomfortable, it means you're growing. "
- Ashton Kutcher
Comfort was one of my main desires. I felt it was "always" a good thing, what I should be striving for. I equated it with happiness and happiness with fulfillment. Thus, I wanted to do whatever I could to ensure me and my family were comfortable. I wanted us to live free from worry, pain, and constraint.
But the way I perceive comfort and its level of importance in my life have changed. This perspective was, in a sense, forced on me. Moving on with your life after a traumatic brain injury, where you look exactly the same but feel like a new person, is a recipe for feeling uncomfortable. I figured if this was the case, I would need to change the way I look at it.
So instead of seeing comfort as the ultimate goal, I began to see its dangers, how it can lead to complacency and how complacency leads to a lack of growth. At the same time, I began to see its counterpart, in a more positive light. I started recognizing the many opportunities for abundant growth that are available to us when we dare to be uncomfortable.
Many factors weighed in on the decision to move my family to Franklin, a place where, at the time we moved, had only visited once before. A place where we weren't sure we would fit in and a place full of unfamiliar faces. But my new perspective on comfort was certainly one of them.
Upon moving, I still had questions and was unsure if it was the right decision. We were leaving an area where we were surrounded by friends and family who we loved and who loved us, as well as an area we had grown comfortable with and accustomed to. I was worried to some degree about how I would deal with this, but mostly, how Jacqui and the kids would. I can't fully explain it, but I just felt in my heart that Franklin was where we were being called to live, the place where we could move forward with our new normal.
Since moving down here, I have been presented with many new, unique, and exciting opportunities. They are ones in the past I would have avoided at all costs because of how they would make me feel, uncomfortable. But I don't want to miss out on these chances anymore. I want to take full advantage of these because I now understand this is how I will continue to grow.
