You Only Live Once
You Only Live Once
That is a phrase you have likely heard often, however when I use it here I do not use it in the common manner.
“Common manner” - what are you Wallace some snooty-mc-stuffy-pants?
ahem
People often use the acronym Y.O.L.O. as an excuse to engage in frivolity, to cast caution to the wind and live life as though it had no consequence. However if you do only live once then life as the ultimate consequence. Your actions are infinitely more important because these are the only moments where you can take those actions.
Do not mistake me; I’m not saying don’t have fun. I am not arguing for a life of strict caution and modernity. I have often in this very blog argued for taking time to yourself, enjoying the small moments and ensuring you do not work yourself to destruction.
What I mean is actions have consequences and you must consider if you have the maturity to weather those consequences.
“If you’re going to live as you please, then you also have to live with the consequences!” -Uraraka Ochako (My Hero Academia)
That, I feel, is the biggest challenge of our adult world. Understanding and then living with the consequences of one’s actions. Often times those consequences are opaque or obscured. Does a nineteen-year0old really understand the consequences of a four year term of military service?
More often, however, we know the consequences and choose to believe they don’t apply to us. Driving and driving is an easy one that comes to mind. But are you, we, prepared for those consequences, will you be mature enough to bear those consequences. Can you shoot that enemy soldier? If your drunken driving kills a child will you turn yourself in and serve your sentence.
Can you live with the consequences?
And I do not just mean this of you, my friends. This is a question I must answer myself as well. I can say to both my pleasure and dismay that my poor choices have lead to consequences and I have done the mature thing though it was terrifying to do at the time.
And, of course, as many such things once done I saw the fear I had of doing the mature thing was unwarranted and felt twice the fool. Once for the act, and again for the anxiety the weight of maturity caused me.
You only live once my dear readers, so you only have one chance to do it right, one chance to be the positive force in the lives of others. So take it, but as you reach forward be honest with yourself and answer “can I live with the consequences?” And then, then go be magnificent.
Thank you my dear readers and God bless;
~S. Wallace