Dream as if you’ll live forever, live as if you’ll die today.” This quote by James Dean is of great significance to me; it is what I live by. I feel it puts an optimistic outlook on my life. This quote can sum up my life so exactly because of my core beliefs. I believe in living for the moment and never letting any opportunity, no matter how big or small, pass me by. I believe in never regretting, because everything happens for a reason. I believe everyone deserves second, third, even fourth chances because, sometimes, people really do change. I never hold a grudge because I think life is too short for petty disagreements. I have been lucky enough to change over this past year into the person I am now, with these beliefs I have such passion for. I used to live my life around others, making sure they were happy and content before I worried about myself.
I began to think this way about a year ago, when I went through one of the toughest times in my life. I had never been the kind of person who would take insane chances, or even chances for myself. I made sure I was the one who was always there to help my friends but never made time for me. As if it were fate’s way of telling me it was finally time to live for myself, I was presented with an opportunity that deemed irresistible and I was unable to turn away from it. Taking that one chance changed my life; it flipped my entire world as I knew it upside down and left me on completely unknown grounds. From then on I was forced to build myself from practically nothing. Going through this, I built my personal philosophy of living for the moment, because that instant when I decided to do just that changed my life forever and for the better.
Life is too short to live for other people; you are put in this world to become the person you were meant to be, not to make sure your friends make it there first. I can dream that people will always change, even if they never do. I can believe that not holding grudges will bring me inner peace. I can assure myself that I have no regrets because everything in life has some meaning behind it; like meeting a certain person or reading a certain quote. Everything has its own way of unfolding to make your life what it is supposed to eventually be, whether these things are good, bad, embarrassing, or sad; they are all supposed to happen and will one way or another. And I can live my life like there is no tomorrow, and take every risk, every crazy chance, to prove that I can because one day, there will be no tomorrow. There won’t be another day for me to say I’ll do it then, and then when I look back on my life, I’ll be able to say I lived.
