There is no time like the present. You never really know when an opportunity will present itself to you again, so why not seize the moment and take advantage of it the first time it comes around? Oftentimes people will dismiss the chance to experience something new due to prejudgments or the fear that they will not succeed. Looking back on past events I will regret more the experiences that I missed out on than the things that I did, but did not enjoy.
Everything we do offers the opportunity to learn something new or grow as a person. When I was young, I spent many days at home helping my dad with miscellaneous tasks rather than going outside to play with my friends as I usually would. I started out doing small tasks, mostly just watching my dad do all the work, but as I grew older I was given more responsibility and acquired some very useful knowledge. While I didn’t always enjoy investing the time that it took to complete a task, I now have experience with woodwork, routing wire throughout a house, building a home network, computer architecture, and repairing just about every component of a car. Through my experiences in boy scouts I found a hobby in hiking and backpacking and was able to see places that I probably wouldn’t have gone otherwise, such as the high Sierras, all over Catalina Island, and hot springs in the hills running alongside the Colorado River. Even here at UCLA, when the majority of my focus is on pursuing my major and preparing for a job, I can find unique experiences through classes and events like those offered at UCLA Live to enjoy in my free time.
If all the world truly is a stage and all the men and women merely players, then specific events can be equated to acts, and an act which carries no importance to the plot or character development may as well just be omitted entirely. I do what I do because I never want to look back and say, “I really wish I would have done that while I had the chance.”
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