LIFE IS WHAT YOU MAKE IT

(I wrote this for speech class when I was a sophomore at the University.)

"Hakuna Matata",-- a phrase that might be familiar to you. Short... but full of meaning. It literally means "no worries", but what does it really imply? Have you ever stopped and think that you may be worrying too much about how to live your life? Aren't you just thankful that you're here... alive?

It's true that living life is not easy, that some are afraid to actually live it. I, for one, regret almost everything I've done in my life. Anxious about what to do because I'm usually bothered by how will other people think about me. Some of us live in hatred. I remember when I was in highschool, I had a bestfriend whom I treated like a sister. Until she pulled the greatest betrayal I could ever think of. You could only imagine how much I hated her. My hatred followed me through my first year in college, long after I have last seen her. Only recently did I realize that I failed to notice that my life has long been in a halt. My hatred had become the focal point of my life. I've been focusing so hard on her that I was missing the greater things coming my way. It only goes to show that you can never change the past, and there's no point in worrying about it. You just have to accept it for what it is, because everything happens for a reason.

The kind of people whom I'm most envious of, are the people who are free from anxiety. People who are living life as it is. People who are happy about who they are and what they have, or however their lives turn out. People who doesn't care about what other people think about them. People who have experienced downfall in life, but are strong enough to stand up, smile, and say... "I'm ready to face another challenge. It may be difficult, but there's nothing I couldn't bear". In short, these are the people who embrace life. And it's from these people, that I really learned that if you're too afraid to live, life is a ghost that will haunt you. If you give up on it, it's nothing but a game in which you couldn't work yourself through to get the grand prize. But if you learn to embrace it, it's a priceless gift that you learn to accept joyfully, for whatever makes you happy, makes you a better person. You cannot say that the path that you've taken seems to be not the perfect one for you. Life is not a matter of fate or destiny... It is a matter if choice, which means that if you are determined enough with whatever you do, you may and will very well succeed.

Life is simple, but very complicated. What does it mean? It's for you to decide. And so I say to you, live life everyday as if it were the last, for you might never know what lies ahead. But never regret anything you have done, because it will be the foundation of your future. Remember, that the strength of a structure will be measured through the disasters it had withstood. Don't worry about what might have been. Just look straight ahead, and you will see that life is good... so live it!