Count-down: 18 days until departure for Alaskan Adventure!
My 15 year old daughter explained its meaning, “You Only Live Once”, because I’m not up on all the hip language of today. She said driving to Alaska is definitely a YOLO moment. Being the nerd I am, I looked up the term anyway. It is similar to expressions such as Carpe Diem. But, I was surprised to see it has negative connotations of taking dumb risks and explaining them away by saying “YOLO, man!”.
That got me thinking. What are we humans to do? Should we live as if we’ll die tomorrow, or live as if we’ll never die? Maybe that is the same thing. Either way we may take too many risks with our body or money. Or should we do everything we can to protect ourselves? That leads to becoming a hermit afraid of everything.
If I only live once, I don’t want either of those scenarios. It’s not one amazing experience that is important to me. It is a lifetime of combined experiences, wonderful adventures, painful trials, and quiet moments. White water rafting together. Losing track of my two year old daughter at Reading Terminal Market in Philadelphia (we found her five minutes later). Sitting with my son in my lap. Gazing out the window on a rainy day where the only sunshine is in the golden yellow wings of goldfinch. Living each day no matter what life throws at me.
Yes, driving to Alaska is surely a YOLO moment, but I prefer to think of my whole life as one long string of YOLO moments.
My 9 year old son introduced me to this silly YOLO video from Lonely Island. I hope you enjoy it.
Kathy :)
A lifetime of experiences - you are exactly right. With a big payoff at the end.
ReplyDeleteLife is all about risks and balance. I'm in the YOLO camp, so I tend to take a lot of risks and I'm often out of balance.
ReplyDeleteI'm much more conservative and have to be persuaded to take a risk but I have been adventurous (for me). Most moments, as you say in your post, are those precious moments, not necessarily extreme ones.
ReplyDeleteIt's fun to be extreme sometimes but like you say, treasure those quiet moments too. You can't be extreme all the time!
ReplyDeleteAs my old friend James Dean once said "Dream as if you'll live forever. Live as if you'll die today." Must have said that before he died in the car crash...
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