I, like many other people, have a bucket list. However, mine spans multiple pages in a notebook. And when I say multiple, I mean like ten pages, front and back. It's a lot. It's not even things that I want to do. My buck list is just a giant list of cities, parks, monuments, buildings, theme parks, etc. that I want to visit within my lifetime.

Unlike many people, I have been lucky enough to already have crossed some of those places off of my list. Within this past summer, the majority of places I wanted to visit in Italy were checked off. I've even been able to take day trips to places on my bucket list.

Sometimes trips to cross these places off are almost perfectly mapped out. I create timelines, routes, spend months saving up the money. I dedicate a considerable amount of energy trying to find the perfect way to visit some of these locations.

I spent seven months planning my trip to Italy.

However, I spent all of two days planning a trip to the Grand Canyon.

All it took was me telling a friend that I really wanted to go see it and that maybe we should see it during one of the long weekends we had this quarter. His response? "Let's go this weekend."

We went and it was awe-inspiring, to say the least. I never really thought I would ever get to the Grand Canyon. Nor did I think it would affect me as much as it did.

Yet as I stood on the precipice of the South Rim, I realized many of things I had added to my bucket list, I never really thought I would actually get to see. I just wrote places down and thought, "Maybe someday."

But someday isn't going to cut it.

I managed to see part of the Grand Canyon in a weekend. Yeah, I would love to have seen more of it, but it is also completely amazing to actually be able to say that I have seen even the tiniest bit of it. And it was all thanks to spontaneity. To a slight bit of recklessness. To creating a moment when the opportunity presented itself.

I saw the Grand Canyon because I did not hesitate when my friend said let's go. We should all do more of that.

Take opportunities as they come and create your own. Yeah, money is a little tight because we're young, broke, and in college but that doesn't mean we have to wait for a "better" time to make memories. We only have today. Use it. I did and I loved every second of it.