I can recall a time in my early teens where I was overly eager to be an adult because IF I were an adult, then I could start great, important, and exciting adventures. As a teen, I looked forward to the future because I thought that IF I was older and IF I had more independence, I could truly do the things that I wanted. Now, as an adult preparing to graduate college, I find myself continuing to look at the future with eagerness and hope because IF I have a job, IF I have more money, and IF I were married, I could be living the adventures that I once dreamed about.

We miss out on so much in life because of the “ifs” that we use to confine ourselves and dull our lives. Don’t get me wrong, “ifs” can definitely be realistic and sometimes reasonable, depending on the situation; however, we cannot live our “ifs”. In my life, I have found that my extensive use of “ifs” have prevented me from a multitude of opportunities that I could have been cherishing and benefiting from today. Because of this, I refuse to mindlessly live my life worrying about the “ifs”, thinking that something or someone will be able to improve my life down the road.

To be honest, this decision wasn’t just a sudden “revelation” for me or some sort of inspirational statement that I wanted to make. No, this is something I believe deep down in my heart and it took my grandpa’s death to surface it. As cliché as it sounds, watching my grandfather pass away has shown me how short life truly is and how we all waste it in blissful ignorance.

My grandpa was a man who was loved by many and a man who I deeply admired. I continue to relish the times when I heard stories of his life and his adventures because I respect that he lived without wasting time. Although his life was full, when I saw him laying on that bed in the nursing home, I couldn’t help but wonder IF he felt “ready”, IF he could have lived to be one-hundred years old IF he didn’t have his disease, IF I was a good enough granddaughter, and so forth. Yet, in reality, none of that mattered because this was the way it was intended to be and worrying had no significance on changing anything.

On his last day with us, I remember rubbing my fingers across his thick hands just so I could imprint his raised veins into my memory. And, just within a matter of minutes, the Lord was ready for him. After he took his last breath, the world was continuing while I was alone in my mind for the next two hours. In fact, I don’t even remember a thing that was happening around me during this time. In my mind, I was oddly cherishing life and was realizing that I needed to really start mine.

Just a short few months after my grandfather’s death, I heard about a study abroad program that would be traveling to five different countries in five weeks. When I first heard about this program, the “ifs” started to overcome my excitement and I knew it wasn’t in the cards for me, per usual. But then I remembered my grandfather and wondered what he would tell me to do now. So, I proved the “ifs” to be irrelevant and insignificant to my life and just came back from Europe a couple of weeks ago. The things I have done and the things I have seen would never have been possible had I listened do those “ifs”. Now, I completely intend to prove that I will not be bound by them anymore.

Instead of “ifs”, why don’t we just “do”? Because, in listening to the “ifs”, you are truly the one who has died. I plan to follow my grandpa’s footsteps in life by making the most of it in every way and every opportunity possible. I surely hope you do to.