We all remember applying to college—the exams, the transcripts, the letters of recommendation, the essays. There was an overwhelming pressure to get everything right; your next four years depended on it. Well, those seemingly interminable forty-eight months have now precipitously passed and I am back to taking exams, sending out transcripts, approaching professors for letters of recommendation, and answering “thought-provoking” essay topics. Now, I use the quotations because it’s not like I haven’t seen the questions before. Sure, this time around the subjects are more precise and maybe some answers require a bit of editing after four years of growing and learning. One question, though, I didn’t know how to answer:

Who has had the greatest impact on your life?

Surely it wouldn’t come as a surprise if any of us chose to discuss our parents, possibly a sibling, grandparent or a distant relative. Perhaps we might think of an athletic coach. Maybe someone who won a battle we are currently fighting. I don’t remember who I wrote about in my college application, but I do remember answering the question. More notably, answering it directly. It’s subtly amusing how four years later I can read precisely the same words and not approach the subject matter in the same way.

Who has had the greatest impact on my life? Well, I dunno… Plenty of people! To answer this question absolutely and truthfully I’d have to dive far into the depths of my memories and the core of my emotions. I’d have to find that one trigger that altered some form of perception within me. Sure, I have a few individuals in mind right now, but why am I asking myself this question? What good am I if I leave this world knowing who has impacted my life? I think I’d be blessed to know the opposite:

Whose life have I had the greatest impact on?

We all know those people in our lives, the special ones, those we look up to, those who have taken on the world in such a unique fashion that forever changed the way we think and do. To write about someone who has done so only requires a few moments of reminiscence, a few minutes of thinking, a single dive into the depths of our minds. We don’t actually have to do anything. We are passive. We have no control over anyone else or their actions. For whatever reasons, people have impacted our lives while we sat, watched, and let it happen to us.

But what have we done to others? What have we said? In order to answer these questions, we can’t just think anymore about the past. We would have had to have done something. So have we?

This is a question we may never have answered. Let’s face it, we don’t normally go around telling people how they’ve impacted our lives. And maybe we should, but there’s still no guarantee that someone will express that to us, that we’ll know whose lives we’ve affected. If there is a high probability that this question might never be answered, that we’ll acquire zero public credit, do we still strive to accomplish the seemingly unattainable? How do we even do it? There’s no rulebook, nothing to guide us.

There are no “off” moments. Each and every one of our words and actions has the potential to impact someone in either a positive or negative way. It seems meticulous to constantly worry about everything we say or do. In a way, it’s how celebrities feel on the daily. And it’s tiring to always be “on.” But even if we’re not public figures, we are still figures in the lives of people who surround us.

So whose life have I impacted? It’s a question I can only hope to answer one day by diving back into my mind and knowing that while I wasn’t perfect, I strove to be the best version of myself. Just as I don’t know if my graduate school application will be worthy of acceptance, I don’t know if I’ll ever impact anyone’s life.

I’ll just have to put my best foot forward. Always.