Diagnosed with squamous cell carcinoma at twenty-seven years old, I think a lot (perhaps too much) about the significance, brilliance, and complexity of life and what it means to truly live. I am not a guru or an expert; I have only my uniqueness and circumstance to offer. I failed for years to truly appreciate how fragile and miraculous and lovely life can be. Cancer was a rude and necessary awakening. It was not a blessing, though. Cancer is never a blessing (and I’d urge anyone reading this to never tell someone with cancer that it is). It is an unprejudiced beast. It destroys lives and has a violent ripple effect. It has touched almost everyone’s life in some way — directly or indirectly. Here I hope to engage readers in the possibility that we can find significance from what we experience. The good and the bad life brings us — we have autonomy to decide how we internalize and react to it all. When it seems all control is taken away from us, what do we do with the few things we CAN control? I invite you to not squander that power, however small. But rather: embrace it, chase it, and use it to produce meaning. It is our right as humans to make our own significance. Waste not.