A phrase that used to be used by young people but now itself is an antiquity is “yolo” or “you only live once”. It’s odd, but even when I was a conservative Christian, I always had a bone to pick with that phrase. I tended to say, “you only live once, unless you believe in reincarnation. Then you live over…and over
again…soooooo…..”. It strikes me oddly now, since I do believe in reincarnation, but for some reason at that time I was aware of that belief as a possibility and had taken the time to compare theologies behind it.
Funny enough, all these years later I realized something about it. Whether or not you believe this is your only life, we as humans often try to do our best, or at least want to. We want that when we think that this is our only chance, and we want that when we think we’ll have to come back to the lesson if we haven’t learned it.
There’s another saying, even more old and yet seemingly un-antiquated. “Live like we’re dying.” It’s an all too common thing in society; we see others planning and scheming. For retirement, for their wedding day, for the future. Their whole lives are spent that way–so much so that they never get to live their life. They never get to enjoy the person who they are because they won’t stop planning for who they’d like to be.
It’s verbally easy (thought not emotionally) to say that I am one of the people that the phrase was made for, so that it might wake me up, in a way. I am a planner. Overly cautious, and over prepared. I don’t like being late or not having the materials needed to do a job properly. I need to learn how to explore and enjoy the life I have here and now. But if I may, I’d like to offer an alternative viewpoint, for those of you the phrase was not made for.
Some people know how to be here, just here, in this now moment, and if this is you dear sir-or-madam, then I could stand to learn a lot from you. If you fully embody the live like we’re dying strategy, (perhaps you always have) I would ask you to ponder if this is a full teaching. I’ll tell you what I mean.
I’d like you to do an exercise for me. Look at yourself in the mirror. Really look at yourself. All of your beauties and flaws, your scars and moles and warts.I want you to look at your cellulite and wrinkles. I want you to look into your eyes and smile. Look at them the way a lover would, see if you can get lost in them. I want you to look at that mysterious bruise, your ugly toe, and that hair that you shave when your partner’s not looking so you can keep the mystery alive. I want you to really get to know yourself again– the you when you’re all alone.
Did you do it? Good. Now I want you to look yourself in the eyes and say, “You might die tomorrow.” (this is very difficult for some people to do.) Can you do it? Great! Now try it just one more time, but instead, this time say, “You might live for a hundred years after today.” How was that? Harder?
I think the problem with our current society is that too many people have a problem saying both sentences. They don’t live their life to the full, so it’s scary to think they might die tomorrow. But they also don’t take care of themselves, and they know it!
They run themselves into the ground and laugh it off with another energy shot and a slice of pizza saying that nobody’s perfect and they’ll start taking care of themselves tomorrow. When tomorrow never comes, they can’t fathom living another ten decades, because that existence would be nothing but pain. If you are afraid of both living and dying, aren’t you just afraid of everything?
The fact is that in this life, we don’t know if we’re going to live or die. You can guess. You can say, “I’m safe today and I’m doing the same thing tomorrow, so I’ll probably be safe tomorrow.” You can say, “He’s one cheeseburger away from a heart attack!” You can say, “I have healthy habits, so I’ll probably die when I’m old, not soon.” But how can we ever really know?
I want to live a life that I’m proud of, whether I die next year or live until I’m 130 years old. I want to die knowing not that I did what I wanted to do, but that I was who I wanted to be. And who do I want to be? Someone beautiful, famous and rich? Someone who seems to be better than everyone else and knows all the secrets of life? No.
I want to be someone who didn’t waste time, didn’t waste resources. I want to be someone who was kind, caring, loving, and forgiving. I want to be someone who was strong when the world wanted me to give up and someone who made something out of nothing.
I want to be someone who appreciated the beauty of the body I was given, the beauty of the life that I was given, appreciated the beauty of everything and everyone possible. Someone who was healthy, grateful, and peace with herself. I want to be someone who was honest with herself and others, and someone who tried their best. I want to be someone who was responsible, and brought happiness to those around me.
I don’t want to have those glaring regrets but I don’t want to take baseless risks because “yolo” or “someday I’m going to die”. I want the walk I take to be one of balance, one of wisdom, and one of love.
When people remember me, I don’t want them to say things like, “She was always up for some fun” or “She pushed herself so hard”. I don’t want them to think about how beautiful and perfect I was, how ethereal and spiritual.
I want them to say, “She was loving. She was kind. She was honest and generous.” I hope that the life I live will be this kind of life, that I am the kind of person that I try to be, and that each day I grow closer to that ideal, not one of perfection or success.
