The Perils of Comfort

A Wolverine Reinvents Himself

While demonstrating the usefulness of one of his levers, Greek mathematician Archimedes of Syracuse claimed, “Give me a place to stand and I shall move the earth.” On an August day over two thousand years later, those words, carved into a simple sign outside Bridgton Academy’s Hamlin STEM Center, caught the eye of a new student.

“On my first day, I looked outside my window and saw that sign...it’s just words, but that quote has done a lot for me.” Sebastian Soltes ’22 came to Bridgton from Calgary, Alberta looking for a place where he could stand under his own power, away from the familiar comforts of his home. “If I went to a Canadian school, it just would not be different enough. The way I looked at it is that the more different an environment I put myself in, the more exponential the growth would be, because I’d need to deal with people who are different from the people I’ve been around my whole life.”

When considering where to take a postgraduate year, Sebastian knew he had an opportunity to do something special. When he saw Bridgton’s motto, “The year that makes the difference,” it struck a deeper chord about how he wants to live his life. “Since before I came here, the idea of a postgraduate year was about growing as a person.”

Since his arrival, the Academy has proven to be the perfect place for the explosive growth Sebastian wanted. “Being away, I’ve needed to adapt to being my own person. The people here don’t know my family, they don’t know my grandparents and all that, they know Sebastian. My family name means nothing and that was important to me…that I mean nothing. I mean only what I put into the Academy and the student body. It was very important to me to go somewhere so far away that I could make my own way.”

He has clearly done just that. Sebastian found that the rigorous standards and hands-on support of the faculty and staff at Bridgton helped him to achieve a new level of academic success. “I came here as a student hating math, I hated STEM subjects, and now I am tutoring other students in statistics twice a week.” His CAP (College Articulation Program) Statistics teacher, Mr. Jeremy Muench, attests to his development over the semester, “Sebastian’s attitude went from asking, ‘Should the answer be X?’ to ‘I think the answer is X.’ His confidence has really grown and it is the result of his consistent investment in the class. He stays involved and when he sees something he can improve on, he takes the actions necessary to grow and find success.”

Even Sebastian was surprised by how his perspective on academics has changed at Bridgton. “I came in with the goal of being a better student, but the driving force was improving so that I could play football. Now, when I think about my priorities, my biggest priority isn’t even football anymore. It’s the fact that I love the academics that I do at Bridgton so much...it’s the first time in my life I’ve ever felt like that.”

As is so often the case, the relationships he has formed at Bridgton have defined his time here as much as his achievements in the classroom and on the field. “It surprised me how close you can get with people. I never thought that friends could feel like family in the way they do here, but I truly feel like some of these guys here are my brothers. They’re just family now.” While Sebastian was initially wary of the constant contact that comes with boarding school, it proved to be one of Bridgton’s most pleasant surprises. “I’ve always thought it was important for me to get my alone time. Suddenly, I don’t have that here, but that need has gone away. I am constantly with these guys and I wouldn’t change it. I love it because I’ve actually just found my people.”

Sebastian’s care for his newfound brethren inspired him to be the first student this year to deliver a chapel speech, “I had a very clear message about the severity of this year and how it can be used to change your life because I believe that it can. It’s something I really wanted to get across for some of the guys who might not take it as seriously.” When Sebastian describes the “severity” of the year, it is not a complaint. He started thinking about the positives of experiencing discomfort while preparing himself for the football season, “This summer I was working with a trainer...He would make us do these sprints. They were the worst thing I’ve ever done, but after a week I could do two more than I did the previous week. Then the five minutes of sprinting at the beginning of the offseason became fifteen minutes by the end of it. I could feel how much growth I got out of that.”

When Sebastian decided he wanted to deliver a speech to his peers, he focused on this relationship between comfort and discomfort, the ways Bridgton can be uncomfortable, and why Wolverines should relish that discomfort rather than hide from it.

It’s a message that resonated with his peers, “I’ve had a lot of people come up to me and say things like, ‘That really opened my eyes, because I’ve been letting it go by like it’s another year of high school.’ I know there are some guys who don’t take it the way that I do, but I think that it’s so important to take advantage, because this is an amazing place.”

“I don’t want to come out of Bridgton the same Sebastian that I was in 2021. I want to be the guy who packed up and went to Maine for a year and became more comfortable with himself, became more confident, became more rigorously focused on academics…I want to make myself a better person and I can’t think of a better place with more caring faculty, where I could make better friends; it’s everything I expected it to be and more.”

It is safe to say that Sebastian has found his ground to stand on and we are all excited to see how he moves the world in the years to come.

Sebastian Soltes ’22 delivered the following speech to the Bridgton Academy community on November 1.

Today I want to talk about comfort and its role in personal growth.

Comfort stems from the Latin roots ‘com’ which means ‘with’ and ‘fortis’ meaning strong. “Com-fortis” or “comfort” means “with strength.” So why is it that when we break down this word, we find strength, but when we think about comfort for ourselves, we view it as weakness, vulnerability, and complacency?

The reality that I have come across is this: choosing to remain comfortable because of fear to leave that area of comfort is the only weakness. I believe that “fortis” is being comfortable in a plethora of situations and finding the grace that exists in discomfort. The good news is that by coming to this school, however far from home you may be, you have proven to yourself that you are not weak, because this is in no way a comfortable experience.

You are away from your family, your friends, your partners, the dogs, the cats, the fish, the fridge, the couch, your mom or dad waking you up for school and cleaning up your messes... Whatever may have been providing you comfort before is now gone. This is likely the first step towards independence you’ve taken, and I applaud you for it.

Hell, I commend myself for it because coming to this Academy was not an easy decision. I signed my papers four months out. I had around 120 days to think about leaving home and going to school in the east, away from everything I’ve known in my (mostly) Canadian and west coast life. At that moment, it was easy for me to sign the papers. I loved the praise that I received from my family and peers. I loved the way people viewed me for going off to a school so far away. They spoke of maturity, bravery, and intelligence, and I loved it. But then suddenly the month wasn’t May anymore. It was August, and it was finally time for me to board a plane to Boston and begin living through the experience I had been talking about for the months previous. The self-promotional glimmer was gone and those people weren’t around to applaud me. Admittedly, it was hard.

The idea of cutting out the support systems you have had all your life is a lot easier said than done. I still miss my mom and dad, my dogs, my siblings, and my city, but I signed up for this school because I knew I wanted to grow as a person. Thanks to biology, I understand that the fastest form of growth happens during one’s adaptation and response to a new environment.

In my opinion, Bridgton Academy presents a unique opportunity for concentrated personal growth through a ninemonth period in which the student body interacts directly with each other and the faculty. It’s a sort of dry run where we as young men are challenged with inventing ourselves without the help of external forces like a family name or childhood friends. You are the only representation of yourself. There is no family to vouch for you, no older brother or sister to back you up or start a legacy. Just you.

At Bridgton, it doesn’t matter if you live with a single mother working two jobs or if your family name is plastered on the sides of buildings. When you walk out of your dorm every morning, the only “you” our community knows is the one that you present to us, because when you stepped onto this campus, for the first time in your life, your first name became more valuable than your last. I’m going to emphasize that: your first name is more important than your last during your time here. That is what you are represented by.

With all of that kept in mind, what I am trying to express is this: If we are comfortable, we have no reason to change. You need friction to light a match, a stone strike to make a spark. Conditioning is the only way to increase endurance. As uncomfortable as it may be, you need a catalyst. I implore you, and myself, not to run from discomfort, but to embrace it. Use it to inspire change in yourself. Force it if you have to. Dive off the metaphorical cliff that we are constantly standing on at this time in our lives: the constant uncertainty...the clouds over all of our futures that likely have yet to subside and show us our paths.

Don’t be afraid to hit brick walls throughout your endeavors and try new things. Mess up. Find a new standard of excellence, hold yourself to it in all respects, and if you fall out of line every once in a while, don’t be dissuaded. You can always try again. You can always get up.

Being here is not a pass-fail ordeal. This is a series of complex trials of spirit, emotions, and social situations that help to expose who you truly are to yourself. Good and bad. This experience should make you more self-aware and therefore stronger if you use it correctly. I am sold on the belief that this time can change your life if you let it. I have already felt it in myself.

The day I got here, I took out my notebook, tore out a sheet of paper, and wrote, “What do I want to get out of Bridgton Academy? What do I want to accomplish at Bridgton Academy?” On that paper, I made a promise to myself that I will not let down the people in my life who got me here, the people in my life who supported me and continue to support me. I refuse to let them down. As my dad told me before I left, the only way I could let them down is by wasting this opportunity.

It should be a goal to go through this process and not waste your personal time or your support system’s resources. I will not waste my teacher’s resources or my coach’s resources. I promised myself that I would take every last bit of knowledge and all the wisdom they have compiled through their years of experience. I promised myself that my parents will notice a difference in me, my girlfriend will notice a difference in me, my brother and sister will notice a difference in me. My study habits and grades will reflect a difference in me. All it takes is twenty minutes of introspection over a couple of days to do an honest assessment of yourself. What do you like about yourself? What don’t you like? In what area, in this moment in your life, are you lacking? Are your study habits bad? Maybe you do not brush your teeth in the morning. Do you not like how you act when you are around big groups of people? Do you have a problem with self-advocacy and talking to teachers and coaches when you desire change or improvement? Those are just some examples. The same way that we make goals in athletics, we can make goals in life. Goals and aspirations don’t make you weak! They bring out that fortis, that paradoxical uncomfort. Make goals and hold yourself to them. Accountability is best when the individual who makes the goals holds himself or herself accountable. We are all capable of greatness. Let us continue on this path of self-betterment.

I thank all of you for your time, faculty and brothers. Let’s continue to have a great year.