“If your life ended right now, could you honestly say that you lived it the way you want.”

I saw this on Tumblr and it scared me. Not because of the idea of death or my life ending, but because of my answer.

I honestly couldn’t say I’ve lived my life the way I wanted to and what if I never get to. I have dreams of trying the world, of making a difference, of starting a family. I watch videos and TV shows where characters are living amazing excitement filled lives and that’s what I want.

Nineteen years and I really haven’t been living the way I want to. Now I understand that it is difficult to live the life you want when you spend of majority of your time sitting in a chair learning about something that happened hundreds of years ago, or a math equation that you will never use again (I’m also not saying that school is awful. School is important), but I’ve come to the conclusion that a big reason my answer is "No" is because of fear. It takes over my life and causes me to live in a bubble of safety. I want to pop that bubble. I want do things that scare me, that excite me and that challenge me. I don’t want to live safe.

Yet, I still do, because overcoming fear is difficult. Because fear is a powerful emotion with the ability to control someone’s life. We all have fears, some stronger than others. But to truly live the life we want, we need to be stronger than fear, to look fear directly the eyes and say “No.” We need to work on living for the now, instead of looking towards the future, and we need to surround ourselves with people that make us laugh more than people who make us cry.

This question has really stuck with me, and because of it I have started to write a list of things I want to do during my life. The list includes big trips, exciting adventures and smalls act of joy and kindness. Everyday I hope to cross something off that list in hopes of truly living the life I want.

Now let me ask a different question. When you look at the world around you, can you say that you helped make the world a better place or did you contribute to the death, the hopelessness and the helplessness that is slowly engulfing our world? Did the life you lived help to make someone laugh, or smile? Did you make someone’s life better, even if by a small act? Or did your actions contribute to the people who cried themselves to sleep every night, or the ones who wished to be invisible so they wouldn’t have to go through the day? Did you make people wish they were dead, or make them want to live? And if your life ended today, could you honestly say you lived it the way you wanted to?