If I’m being honest, I don’t think I’ve found much meaning to the life I’ve lived. I don’t believe I’ve really lived at all. Each day just kinda washes over me like a wave, and nothing in my schedule ever seems to change. The life I live is somewhat boring. However, I can’t talk like that because there are people out there who would kill to have this simple life that I seemingly take for granted.

That saying, “Everyone has a story,” really makes me feel like I have no story to tell. No story to define me.

The worst adversity I’ve overcome is heartbreak and any excitement I’ve ever felt has just seemed to level out, so I never feel more excited about something than I did the last. Is that life? It just seems like there’s no depth. No layers to it.

I think that being able to find meaning to life is being able to find meaning with yourself, but lately I feel like focusing on yourself is never a priority. When you go through your daily schedule, when is there time to just look at yourself in the mirror and reflect? When is there time to simply think? By the time my head hits my pillow, I’m either frying my eyes with the glare of a cell phone, scrolling through social media, or falling directly to sleep. My mind is too tired to project dreams anymore, let alone save time to think. But this is just me speaking as an emotional, and confused teenager pondering the meaning of all of this.

If I were 10 years younger right now, writing about the meaning in my life, I would be telling you something completely different from the above statement. I would be telling you that one day I’m going to be a chef, that the giant rock protruding out of the grassy hill in my backyard was a cliff, and that things will never change. Innocence will last forever.

To me, it’s crazy to think that time moves so quickly and that my life is being altered every day. I can’t pinpoint certain memories that trigger meaning to everything I’ve ever experienced, but I can speak for the present.

Right now my life is pretty good. Scratch that, my life is awesome. My family supports me every day and shows nothing but love, I have a roof over my head and food in the fridge. I’m attending a prestigious university and I’m a student athlete. But what is the meaning of all of that? I can’t answer that question and I won’t. Not until I’m 95 years old, and have lived a full life and finally have the time to reflect. Right now I just want to live. I think it’s time to tell myself not to think so far in advance, not to hold on to the past and finally just use the time in the present moment to start finding meaning. To start developing that story.

I don’t want to rush time. I don’t want to jump to conclusions about what the purpose of my being is, and I don’t want to be unstuck in time and only ever dwell on the past; what I could have done, what I should have done. I’m going to appreciate every day for as long as I can. Because time is so precious in this crazy, unpredictable life.