Thank goodness I am a very decisive person. Every single day, decisions loom over me, never leaving until a direction is chosen. This has never overwhelmed me, and I feel like it makes cruising through life significantly easier since I’m not stopping every second to consider a new path to think over. In fact, this is one of many traits about myself that I am glad I have been gifted with—I get that from my dad. 

Speaking of decisions, I have just recently made one of the biggest decisions I’ll make for a long time: I decided where I will spend the next four years of my life. Next year, you can find me studying Pre-Vet Medicine on the Hope College campus, spending my free time walking along the beach and walking around the little city of Holland as I make my home there. 

Ever since I took the college visit trip with the Honors English 10 classes, and we got to spend some time on Hope’s campus, I knew in the back of my mind that Hope College would be where I would end up; I could see myself there more than anywhere else. 

But even though I had that decision made up in my mind, I never fully announced it until recently because I wanted to explore other options and entertain new ideas of what my future could hold. On every campus I visited, however, I found myself comparing it to Hope’s campus. 

For example, I absolutely love Purdue’s campus; it is condensed, really beautiful, and has lots of unique things to do. But that is also how I would describe Hope’s campus as well. The difference is that Hope is only 45 minutes away from home while Purdue is closer to 3 or 4 hours away. I love being around my family, so this was one way that Hope was an encouraging choice for me. 

The future is exciting—parts of it more than others—and each decision I make helps my future evolve and change and be shaped into what I want it to be and what I want to accomplish. 

I don’t know why making decisions has always been so simple and easy for me. Maybe it is because I know that I have support all around me for anything I do. There’s something comforting about having supporters who don’t suffocate me while I decide different paths or make realizations about what I want in the future, and I think that’s one element of decision-making that helps it flow so easily. 

In other news, I also recently turned eighteen; I am a legal adult now that can vote, buy lottery tickets, and have multiple new ways I can demonstrate total independence. The new opportunities that come along with that will no doubt test and push my self-deemed phenomenal decision-making skills, but I just know that I have to stick to what I know, and I can still rely on others for help and advice in the process.