Playing the ‘what if' game will get you nowhere in life. I've been guilty of playing it myself, though I know no good will come from wondering what could have been.

The decision to leave my birth country and arrive in the United States was not my own. I did not choose to overstay my visitor's visa. My parents made that decision for me, and if they had known the situation we are in now, I believe they would have chosen differently.

Most of the citizens in my birth country are educated and living comfortably. In fact, it is very technologically advanced; new medical innovations are constantly being designed. Everyone has cars, cell phones, and laptops, just like the United States. I probably would have had a similar life to the one I have now. I would have gone to college, and traveled.

Sometimes when I feel the pressures of being undocumented overwhelm me, I can't help blaming my parents for putting me in this situation. It never lasts long, and I know, at the time, to leave to America was the best decision for our family. Even with all the struggles I face with daily, I know being an undocumented student has made me who I am today. It has made me a better, more tolerant person.

I will also always be grateful to the American doctors who performed life-saving brain surgery on my younger brother. When my brother was ten years old, he went for a check-up, specifically for the condition he was born with, and the doctors found fluid building up in his brain. They operated using very new advanced techniques a few days later, and since then my brother has not needed any other operations. We don't know what would have happened in another country. We don't know if doctors in another country would have caught the fluid build-up or even had the right technology to perform the surgery successfully. Moving to the United States saved my brother's life, and for that reason alone, I cannot fault my parents for bringing me to this country.