I think life should be lived to the fullest. Don’t be afraid or save things for later. My life is perfect; why shouldn’t I enjoy the most of it.

I came to this conclusion after an assignment in Spanish class. The prompt was to write about what you think heaven is like. My actual essay said things like “There is a lot of food” and “I like food” because of my limited vocabulary in the foreign language, but I really got to thinking about what heaven would be like.

I decided it would be green, green like nature. There are lots of healthy plants and trees, and a few beautiful flowers. The light will filter through the tree leaves to speckle the soft green grass. Beautiful flowers will pop up sporadically all over. Actually I pictured it a lot like my backyard.

After I identified the scenery for my heaven, I tried to imagine what I would do there. On Earth, my favorite thing to do is paint, so in my heaven I guess I would have a lot of easels and paint. I wondered what I would create. I picture my heaven as being perfect. Does that mean all my pictures would be perfect too? I wouldn’t like that. Sure it’s frustrating when you work on a project all day and it still doesn’t look the way you want it to, but that makes those few masterpieces I make even better. If I make a masterpiece every day, they wouldn’t be special at all.

I also wondered who would be with me in heaven. My family and my friends, of course, but what about the other billions of people who have died. Are they wandering around in my green garden with me? And do we all get along? In heaven I can’t picture arguments breaking out, so I guess we all are just super happy all the time. I don’t think I would enjoy that either. No one likes to be upset and depressed, but if you’re happy all the time, then that devalues the importance of a smile or a word of comfort.

After I thought about it I realized I want a heaven that looks like my backyard, allows me to paint a lot but doesn’t make everything I paint perfect, and I want my family and friends to be there. We wouldn’t always get along, but when we do, it will be special.

Then I realized I have all that. My heaven is here on Earth and so I should spent every moment to the fullest because it can’t get any better than I already have it.