What scares you? I’m not talking about the gigantic, black, long-legged spider you catch out of the corner of your eye crawling up your dorm wall when you’re trying to turn your research paper in by 11:59pm. I’m not talking about sleeping past all of your alarms to make it to your 8am on Monday morning. I’m talking about the thing that keeps you up at night. The thing that physically hurts to think about losing, causing a bottomless pit in your stomach.

Mine? Settling. Settling for a life that I don’t want to live. Spending my life completely wasting my time on pointless things I could (sorry for the language) give a shit about. Now let me clarify a little bit here. I’m not saying to drop out of college because you’d rather eat ramen for the rest of your waking days than go to Calculus. I’m saying if you hate your job, quit. You’ll find another one. If there are people in your life that only cause you anxiety and anger, cut them out. You’ll meet other people, people who appreciate you for you. Go do something. Stop going to class, and crawling right back into your bed to watch Netflix. You can watch an episode or two before you go to bed.

We all live our lives in these stupid, little bubbles that we create for ourselves. Why? Human nature. We feel safe and secure in our bubble, our comfort zone. I was sitting through a world culture class the other day, and something that my professor said absolutely panged me, “Everybody should do in their lifetime one thing. Consider death. Wonder what it would be like to go to sleep and never wake up.” Morbid, I know. But really… just let that sink in for a second. What if everyone lived their lives like that? Every single night when your head hits the cold side of your pillow, that could be it. Think about how differently you would live your life.

Living a life where finishing an entire season of Greys Anatomy in two days, isn’t the highlight of your week anymore. A life where the highlight of your week is exploring new coffee shops, reading new books, exercising, saving up your money to travel to all of the hidden beaches in Greece over the summer. One of the things that has always fascinated me is that day by day nothing changes, but then you look back on your life and everything has changed. So make your days different. Get out of your dorm room, and stop settling. Because I am telling you… the day that you decide to settle is the same day where you are giving away your whole life. 20 years from now make sure you are able to say that you are living a life that you worked for, not one that you settled for. I can guarantee you’ll be sitting on your beaten up Lazy-boy sofa, watching a documentary, sipping a lukewarm cup of coffee.

Suddenly you let out a screech, because out of the corner of your eye you see a giant, black, long-legged, spider crawling up the wall.

And just like that, this is your life.