Lynsey Addario includes the story of her Nana’s missed chance in love as a way of introducing the concept of regret and how she plans to avoid it by following her passions.  Addario recounts her grandmother’s story of denying a possible love interest for a “better” and wealthier man.  This short story provides insight into how Addario feels about her passion for photography.  She doesn’t want to regret not following her passion in the same way that her grandmother regrets her neglected love interest.  Partially because of her grandmother’s experience, Addario embraces the idea of putting herself in harm’s way to follow her passion for photography.

Connecting back to my passion for pushing myself out of the known and trying new things, I also don’t want to live with regrets.  Just as Addario’s grandmother recounts, ignoring opportunities leads to regrets.  This directly corresponds to my passion of trying new things because that actually stems from a fear of missing out on opportunities.

When traveling throughout London and Ireland on a school trip this past spring, I found myself almost overwhelmed by all of the “new” that surrounded me there.  I was so bombarded by new people, accents, stores, places, foods and customs that I began to shut down.  I spent my entire first day in Ireland with my headphones in, ignoring the new happening all around me.  However, once I realized what was happening, I decided that that was a terrible way to go about living your life.  I let the fact that I missed my friends and family, the familiar aspects of my life, dictate my mood and therefore my actions.  Once I decided to open myself up to new experiences abroad, that mentality followed me back to America and ever since then I have become almost addicted to trying new things.