Take into consideration how many people you know. Now think of how many people are on this planet. It’s pretty wild how incredibly small the fraction is of people on Earth that we can say we know. The fraction only gets smaller as we narrow it down to people that we consider our friends. While we may consider ourselves quite unfortunate that there are billions of wonderful people in the world we will never have the privilege of meeting and growing alongside of, we should consider ourselves quite lucky that we know the people we do. Think about it; no one gets to meet everyone. That’s simply not a possibility in this world. But only you and an extremely limited amount of individuals get to meet your best friend. An even smaller amount get to know him or her on a personal level. You are so incredibly lucky to have your friend in your life.

I have such a wonderful support system, and there are several people in my life that I’d say have helped me to become the person I am today. I can’t help but wonder sometimes how coincidental the whole process of meeting people is. Most my friendships I have made in my life I can narrow down to one decision that I made, or one coincidental event that allowed me to be a significant part in this person’s life to this day. It’s absolutely insane to me how a decision as simple as choosing one class over the another has led to me forming some of the best relationships I have to this day. These relationships are one of a kind– only two people experience a relationship like you and your friend. Only you two get to experience the mutual benefit of learning from each other’s mistakes. Only you two get to feed off each other’s inside jokes. Only you two get to know what it’s like to be in a relationship such as the one you two share. And this relationship is a one-of-a-kind mechanism that makes you the unique and interesting individual you are.

Writing this article has been quite a journey. I started off wanting to talk about how grateful I am to have the friends I have, but through this I think I have discovered a much broader and significant lesson: Love your life for what it is. You are so lucky to be given the experiences, the opportunities, and the chances that you’ve been given. There are no friendships like yours. There is no life like yours. There is no you like you.