My life is a beautiful adventure that God intended for me to live out to the fullest, remembering that every day is a gift and should not be taken for granted.

Well hello there. How absolutely insane is life? Honestly, I don’t even know how I keep my head above water most of the time. Yet, I find saying “no” to being involved in different activities is even harder. All throughout high school I always used that oh too common phrase of “I’ll do that later.” Well, let me tell you that that phrase is one of the biggest copouts that anyone could ever use. Thankfully, I am no longer that person, but rather live my life through the rather cliché idea of YOLO. Not really, you just have to add it in there. Now I’m not saying I disagree with the concept of YOLO, but the overuse of the phrase makes it obsolete when talking about making the most of every situation.

I never realized how blind I was to how fast life moves until a couple of days ago. Life is a discombobulated array of experiences and circumstances that eventually lead to the greatest story of love, fear, hope and desperation, aka our exclusive, unwritten biography.

Recently, I decided that it was the time to put this thinking into practice, so I decided to let my wings expand and took an opportunity to go to a competition for a club at the University of Colorado-Boulder. Now, it’s a plus that I ended up winning my portion of the competition, but that was just a happy coincidence. The real truth that I ended up realizing while sitting in the CU student center sipping my Celestial Seasonings tea was that a year from now I will be in college, and I passed up on so many opportunities to enhance my success both in and out of the classroom for fear of “missing too much school.” In reality, missing school can sometimes be a detriment, but in choosing to participate in activities and out-of-school events that you are really passionate about, they can end up being some of the most rewarding, memorable times.

School will always be there, opportunities will not.