By: Rachel Valadez

I sit in this gazebo on a mountain, and think of everything that is perfect here, everything that should never change. Here in India, I can feel with every one of my senses how imperfectly perfect this country, and this world, is. On our first night in Corbett, I wrote in my journal about how the people in this country do not live in fear of anything, but instead they live with complete confidence in the perfect chaos that is the streets, the people, the government, and nature. All of these aspects of their daily lives bring potential for disaster every day, and yet they throw themselves head-first, without fear, into the chaos; and they have complete trust that everything will work the way it is meant to. Watching this, day in and day out, it has touched something in me. The beauty of all the perfect near misses is something to be marveled at for a lifetime. I said that I aspire to live my life like this: with complete trust that the perfect chaos that is this life we live in. This life that we live day-by-day, week-by-week, year-by-year, until suddenly it’s over, and we look back and realize how much fun we actually had.

Without this trip, I think I would still see this life as something to push through, like an obligation to be fulfilled, instead of seeing it for what it really is: an infinite number of chances to be a piece of beauty among beautiful pieces of life. In your timeline, you have a future, but not really a present, as the future starts quickly becoming your past. But for a little while, I can share a piece of your beauty, and you, you can share a piece of mine. For a moment, we are connected and in that moment our paths have crossed and will never be the same. Our lives, filled with these infinite chances, deserve to be lived with every chance taken, because to look back having no regrets is the most beautiful result you could ever come out with.