YOLO

You only live once, or YOLO as you young whippersnappers would say. Other than being a factual statement, it implies a lot. It tells us there are no do overs, decisions are permanent, and you only got one shot to be who you want to be. 

Living is a privilege and a gift, and it can be taken away at any moment. And if your life was taken away right now would you look back and say that you’re happy with the way it played out? Or are you somebody with many regrets, dwelled on mistakes and joyless. I have had serious depression ever since I was in 7th grade. It is so hard for me to physically stay happy for any period of time. And yet I’m so fortunate to be proud of how I live my life. Everyday I wake up with the sole purpose of making others smile even if I’m not strong enough to put on a smile of my own. That’s what I want to do in life and that’s what I do every single day. Because I achieve this I can confidently say that I live my life the way I want to and not a single moment is taken for granted. Although I look around and a lot of others can’t say the same. 

An example I can use is a person very close to me. They spent there entire life working. They have always worked 3 jobs and still were forced to look their child in the face and say “we can’t afford that.” They wake up, go to work, go home, sleep, and after slaving away 7 days a week with no days off, they don’t ever have a dime to spend on there self. Instead of working to live, they live to work. It breaks my heart everyday that they have not lived a life they deserve. And your naive if you think what they have gone through doesn’t apply to something like school. I have seen with my very own eyes kids who are so involved with school that they have no real life outside of it. These same kids miss out on spending time with their friends, getting out of the house, or even just having time to relax. And it’s understandable that you have to work to live a life you want, and I don’t disagree, but what I am saying is that when you are on your deathbed all of that work doesn’t matter. And due to the uncertainty of how life goes, a day where all that work pays off might not even come at all. Being overworked 80% of your life just for it to hopefully pay off In the last 20% doesn’t sit well with me. Sometimes it’s better to take a pay cut and do something you love. 

Take that risk, trust your instincts, and instead of waiting for opportunities to find you, I say go out and make one for yourself. Life is far too short to be wasting time, because time that you spend is never time you’ll get back. Now that could mean dwelling on something that happened in the past or simply not doing anything to push for your future. Those are wasteful uses of time because time is gonna keep flowing and your not gonna do anything to follow it. 

Go get out there, do what you want to do, go where you want to go, be who you wanna be, because you might not get another chance. Make something special with your life, something that makes you happy. And no matter what, it’s never too late to start searching for that change. And to end this off, ill summarize everything I said, with one iconic Eminem quote. “You only get one shot, do not miss your chance to blow.”

“silly serious” by horizontal.integration is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.