What If…

Every Decision in Your Life Matters

I constantly think about “what if?” I am 25 years old, and I have made so many decisions in my life. The first decision I made was when I was seven. I’d decided to start practicing classical ballet officially. When I was 12, I decided to go to girls only school. When I was 15, I decided to not go to Bulgaria to learn ballet even though I received an acceptance letter. When I was 16, I decided to quit dancing. When I was 18, I decided to go study abroad to Canada for four months. Fortunately, my parents were “cool” so they let me do whatever I wanted to do. They didn’t stop me when I wanted to try new things. I’ve made so many important decisions at least to me), however, coming to the U.S. is one of the biggest decisions I’ve ever made.

Coming to the U.S. is not something I’d planned since childhood. It was a completely a gut feeling. I was never good at English when I was in high school, and I wasn’t even interested. When I went to Canada, it was harder than I thought to talk with people from different countries, but I felt so good when I could communicate with them even I was speaking broken English. That’s the reason why I decided to go to the U.S. and go to a college.

What if I didn’t come to the U.S. and stayed in Japan? I know I would have been happy with friends and family, graduated from a university in Japan, gotten a job just like others, and complained about the company and co-workers to friends after work hours. I would’ve been happy, but would I be able to be as excited as I am now? When I met friends from a university in Japan last summer, one of them asked us what would we do differently if we could go back to the university and do it all over again. Everyone answered, “maybe I would be in the soccer team,” “I would study abroad.” I didn’t know what to say because I would do the same thing and go study abroad.

I’ve always believed in my instinct, and tried my best to do anything I wanted to do to not have any regrets because I only live once. Every decision matters to your life. Do what make you happy. Even if you failed, you would learn lesson from it. It’s better to regret doing something than to regret not doing it. It’s a lie if I say I have no regrets in the decisions I made, but I love how my life turned out. I will keep believing in my guts and try to do everything I want to do in my life.