One of my favorite shirts is a navy blue, super comfy t-shirt that I got in the first week of school. Not only is it super comfy, but on it is probably one of my most favorite quotes ever.
"The world offers you comfort. But you were not made for comfort. You were made for greatness."
-Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI-
When I first got the t-shirt I thought, "woah! What a great quote!" And the more I thought about the quote, the more realized how relevant it is to our generation.
The world is obsessed with comfort, and the media that is fed to us young people is full of lies which tell us how to live our lives, also telling us that comfort equals happiness. But have you noticed that all those people we look up to, the role models in our lives and the great saints of the church- they haven't remained comfortable by the worlds standards. Not only saints but people in our lives who have achieved success in school, work or sports- they haven't remained comfortable; they pushed themselves to be great in their field by going beyond mediocrity and just doing things "good enough" and instead worked hard and did their best. As Christians, it looks a little different than just excelling in our field. It means that we defy the lies which are fed to us everyday as young people- we abandon the 'comfort' of serving ourselves and being disrespectful or unkind and embrace the discomfort of putting on a smile and treating everyone with kindness no matter what; we abandon the 'comfort' of leaving things we don't care about half-done and embracing the extra time and discomfort of doing it to the best of our abilities and with love. We abandon the 'comfort' of being looked at as normal by the eyes of the world and embrace the discomfort of knowing how precious, unique and loved each one of us is in the eyes of Christ. We abandon the 'comfort' of ignoring our sins, weaknesses and failures and embrace the discomfort of humility and contrition. We abandon all these comforts because as Pope Benedict says, we were not made for comfort. We were made for greatness. That means that we will not be happy in living comfortably; but we will be happy when we seek the greatness for which we were made.
God has blessed us as young people with great energy and a love for fun and adventure. To be truly great we don't need to wait until we're older- we need to start right now and use those blessings in the right way, get out of our comfort zones and dare to be great in a world that tells us to be comfortable. Imagine the difference we as young people can make if we just get out of our comfort zones?
Soli Deo Gloria!
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