Lately I've been looking back on the time and moments that have passed since starting college four years ago. It's crazy to look at who we were at the beginning of the process to who we are now. The same person but with more life lessons learned, lifelong people by our side and plenty of new opportunities and adventure.

It seems like we're always hearing people say 'what's your one regret in life?' or 'if you could do something differently what would it have been?' but why do we obsess over what could have been? Not to be the bearer of bad news, but as of now we can't go back in time to change something... if given the opportunity, would we really want to anyways? Personally, I have to say no, I would never want to go back and do anything differently, I don't have any regrets in life besides maybe skipping desert but that's a different story.

In class just the other day, a professor mentioned research done on "beauty in the error" and ever since hearing that I couldn't help but continue thinking about it. It's something that stuck with me because it sums up how I feel about our paths through life and our experiences throughout. With beauty in the error in mind, we can look at the past with understanding realizing our decisions brought us to where we are now and look to the future with hope knowing that it all works out the way it was meant to. With a mindset like this, do we really make mistakes or are these just events that lead us and give us direction to where we are meant to be in certain aspects of our life?

Our 'mistakes' allow us to have life lessons to remember for years to come, to learn what's right for us and have experiences to share with others so that they don't end up in the same situations as we were once in or we can support those who were in those situations. It's crazy to look back and see how you ended up where you are right now, it's as if you were making the perfect mistakes to bring you happiness and understanding. Without mistakes in the past, we wouldn't be able to fully appreciate all of the good that's present in our lives now.

So don't look back with regret, we all have 'mistakes' we've made but don't forget to learn from them. Don't make the same mistake twice, stay on a path of growth and happiness. We are put in certain situations and make certain mistakes to learn and move forward with more understanding of yourselves and others. Find your piece of beauty within the error. Everything happens for a reason whether we realize that reason right away or not, it all comes full circle and makes sense and in the end, you really wouldn't want things to have happened any other way. Take the chance, do what makes you happiest and strive to make the people around you smile; when focusing on the right things, it's impossible to have any true regrets in your life.