Last night, I spent the night with one of my greatest friends I’ve met at UC San Diego who moved here to Boston this past Fall. Allison Potter and I were co-coordinators of the Alternative Breaks@UCSD program! Last night, we talked, watched movies and YouTube videos, and looked up Groupons that seemed cool. Within our search for Groupons, I stumbled upon something awesome. So, here goes some reflection that happened in my head over the past 24 hours and about the last 7 days, which have been a series of trials and tribulations.
I sometimes come off as a very busy person who overworks himself. I find happiness by making other people feel happy or by finding ways to make positive change in this world. It’s a lot of selfless giving and nothing in return.
Let’s change that.
There are few times in my life I have felt truly alive. I just reflected on this and thought about the time I finished a half-marathon, the time I played the Iroquois “fish game” with my alternative break service team in the middle of the Smoky Mountains while barefoot in frozen grass, and the time I sat upon Mayan Ruins and hiked 16 miles to caves and waterfalls in the jungles of Belize. Those were some of the times in my life I felt alive and realized my existence in this world and that the world is not just a scary place, but a beautiful place.
A lot of things have happened in the last 7 days. When life happens, I forget to live. When bad things happen to people I love most, I forget to live. When people walk in and out of my life, I forget to live.
I need to live.
I need to be alive. I need to be present with what’s here and see that there is much to live for and many things to experience. I need to remember how alive I am and be reminded of the life I need to live. I only have one shot to make it amazing and to fill it with once-in-a-lifetime experiences.
This morning, we had a retreat for our Graduate Student Government at Northeastern University. We were sitting in the room before the retreat preparing for the day, and I was just thinking about the Groupon I found. The Groupon I found was a discounted price of a Tandem Skydive Jump. I asked my friend Kledio Bacci (another VP within the Grad Student Government) randomly to do this with me, and he amazingly agreed in about 10 seconds. We kept talking about the dangers and the risk involved, but how we both wanted to do this and that this was the moment to commit to it. Within minutes, we both purchased the Groupon and we plan to do this when the season opens back up, hopefully in May! So, this was the morning I decided I needed to skydive and I finally made the commitment to do it. Life is way too short to not do the things you need and want to do.
Right now, life is testing me. It’s definitely showing me that life isn’t permanent. Before #YOLO became a thing, we used to say that you only get one life to live. I really do realize now that life is given to us, but can threatened to be taken away at a moments notice. I know this feeling personally because I have had my left threatened and thought I was going to die. It’s that moment when your life flashes before your eyes. You hear about it, but it’s another thing to actually have it happen to you. And now, I am once again tested because I am in fear that I will actually lose someone I love.
If there’s anything I have learned so far, it is that I need to find ways to enrich my life with awesome experiences before it’s too late. I think I have done a good job at that, but I also think I have stopped myself in recent days from realizing the amazing things I have done and the things that I have yet to experience.
So, I post this here as an open invite for others to join in to cross off one of my most-feared yet most-awesome bucket list items. It’s happening sometime in May after I graduate.
Get this Groupon before it goes away! $159 for a Tandem Skydive Jump (a $235 value)!
Now, cue up “What Doesn’t Kill Us (Makes Us Stronger)” by Kelly Clarkson. You better believe I’m actually going to add a Bucket List to my blog as a new tab!
Jack's Journey To Joy 