You only live once. You live only once. However you want to phrase it, you only get to experience the pleasure of life once. (Unless of course you believe in reincarnation, in which case you wouldn’t even know or remember your previous life). As a result, there’s two types of categories people often find themselves falling into – I will name these categories “YOLO” and “YLOO”.
YOLO: You only live once, so you better enjoy every minute of it. This means engaging in anything you want, whenever you want (without really thinking about the future). This could mean a variety of things, but basically stems down to the following: Don’t worry too much about the future, but rather focus on the present and making your life as great as possible now. Sounds like a great notion to abide by, right? Unfortunately, this kind of thinking can lead to some rather unforeseeable consequences. For starters, if you don’t enjoy eating healthy food, you might end up eating a ton of junk or fast food which can lead to health problems in the future. If you don’t like to work hard, or if you spend all the money you make never saving for the future, you might have to work for a longer period of your life and not be able to fully enjoy the benefits of retirement. If you further stretch that out, you might as well engage in as much drugs as possible, and die at a young age happy at least (if those kinds of things make you happy).
YLOO: You live only once, so you should try to make it the most meaningful life as possible. This means rather than focusing on the present, focus on making your future the best one possible for yourself and your family. Finding the best possible career to lead you to that path will ensure you enjoy a happy retirement and not have to work as hard in the future. It could also lead to a higher potential for career advancement in the future, and the likelihood that you will live a much longer life. Two hypothetical questions stem from this belief system: If you spend so much of your life focused on making your future great, are you neglecting your present as a result? For those who work so hard to get to medical school and then spend many years of their lives in debt thereafter, they don’t necessarily get to enjoy the “fruits of being young” so to speak. Secondly, if you work too hard when you’re young and you end up by accident dying at an early age, you kind of “wasted your life” working.
The reality is people too often fall into one of these two categories, when in reality, they should try to strike a balance between the two. Spend money and enjoy life when you’re young, but also focus on your future. Maintaining a healthy balance of work and play will ensure you are both enjoying your life in the present (yolo), but planning appropriately for the future and a rainy day if it comes (yloo). At the same time, try to make sure the profession you choose is something you like. Even if you have to suffer more years of schooling, if your dream job takes longer you should definitely pursue it. You should always choose a job you like that pays less, than a job you hate that pays more.
I hope everyone ends up enjoying their life more as a result of reading this post. If all else fails you can follow of course the principle of “oloy”.
PS: Don’t grow up so fast. Enjoy your life when you’re young.
