Experience Life, Life Experience

I believe in truly experiencing life. Should life pass by like a dandelion some neighbor kid blew into the wind? No. Should it be when Uncle Murray got a little too focused in the competitive eating circuit? No. Life needs to be actively experienced, not passively. Life should have both good and bad; life should be an enjoyment, not a career. That is what I believe.

While I believe that life should be enjoyed. I also believe that I should accept that things will not go my way. Two of my grandparents died on the same day, two years apart. Just as my family was getting past one death, another happened along. The bright side is, we cherish that day. That day is when our family comes together and truly appreciates each other. The fact that there are 60+ people in our immediate family means lots of good food and lots of good stories. Some of the stories can be…exciting. One story in particular was when one of my uncles accidentally gave my grandmother a black eye the day before my other uncle’s wedding. After the bachelor’s party my to-be-wed uncle ‘accidentally’ threw up in my other uncle’s bed…when he was in it. Good stories.

There is always drudgery and reward with life. When we moved from Alpharetta, Georgia to Boise, Idaho my parents pretended we were on a scavenger hunt for the next terminal and gate of our next flight. They made me find the rental car counters, the luggage carousels and the various food courts. I was in 5th grade at the time. While this may have been a boring and corny task, I did it. The reward was a good night’s sleep after our adventure. Adventure meaning a nine hour layover, lost luggage and lost dog, and being bumped to first class. There were also fireworks exploding as we landed…did they know we were coming? Any bed would have done nicely.

I believe that I should actively experience life. Over the winter I was on a competitive robotics team, and it was new to me; going to someone else’s house for about 36 hours a week was awkward at first. That robotics team was a struggle, yet I kept at it until we were finally finished, and the reward for my effort was a lot of new friends and experiences. And yes, I honed my skills at dancing the robot. Passing through life allows so many wonderful experiences to pass by. I gave up ski team to get to robotics on time every Saturday and I missed out on making new and better friends. Also, it allowed my sister to achieve a higher ski ranking than me. This year I will do both robotics and Ski Team and actively achieve the same rank as my sister, beat her best time, and work on the robot.

Life is meant to be experienced. I believe that I should ‘do’ rather than just ‘be’. Immerse myself in the good while trying not to drown in the bad. Live. Love. Life. Wrap that and gift it.