A life well lived...

What does it mean to live a life that was well lived??...What exactly defines that?? Some may say it's to live a life that is perfect or to do everything in your life perfectly: always kind, always happy, always laughing, always positive, obedient in all ways...respectfully I would have to disagree with this. My greatest fear is to live a meaningless life or one that wasn't lived as i would say "well"...I have made multiple mistakes in my life as i know others have too. Who's to judge though (besides God of course)? After all we're all human, we're bound to slip up every once in awhile. But isn't that what makes a life well lived, to make those mistakes but then to learn from them...or to forgive others for their mistakes? I one hundred percent believe with my whole heart that the most important thing in life is only to learn and to better yourself as you go about this life. We all know there will be bumps, fights, mean words, trials, lies, and backstabbing...it's life. But there's also so much beauty that can come from all those terrible things. To learn how to overcome, how to compromise and negotiate, how to replace those mean words with kind ones, how to expand our faith in God and people we love when hit with trials, and of all how to forgive. What else is considered a life well lived??...I believe one that is filled with love and compassion. Obviously we can't all have perfect days and always be happy and laughing, we can strive for that but the likelihood of it is small. But i feel like no matter what we're going through there's always someone out there that has it worse...i feel that even on our bad days love and compassion should be never ending. It's funny because it wasn't too long ago when i myself was struggling with some bumps that had come up in my life...and i remember feeling down and a bit disappointed; however, a couple days before that i knew a family that had been struck with such tragedy that most would consider unbearable and I instantly felt so guilty for feeling even the slightest bit down because my bump was no where near comparable to that poor family. I felt so silly and so guilty for being so bitter when at that time I could in no way compare my life to that family's. I was so blinded my bitterness to see how truly blessed i was even though things weren't necessarily going my way. How selfish was i being?? Instantly I began to work on putting that bitterness and disappointment aside and allowed those feelings to turn into love and compassion for that family. I'm sure as a high schooler i was very selfish (as most are), but we grow up, I have grown up,we leave and we learn things. We learn how to reach out and better the bad. We learn compassion and true love. We learn how to be accepting of others and we learn how to forgive. Do we learn it all at once? Of course not, but through our mistakes and others we do learn them. Are these not the right steps or the right track that leads us to a life that's being well lived...i mean of course there's always the opportunities of service to go help and go to other countries and all of that which don't get me wrong are WONDERFUL things that i hope to be able to be apart of one day...but if at this small time in our lives those things aren't really in eye's sight...then these small acts that create GREAT change are just as or maybe even more important. We all have the opportunity to bring the beauty back to this beautiful world that so many have let be destroyed with filth. So as I would say..BE THE CHANGE YOU WISH TO SEE IN THE WORLD! :) I love you all!