We have a population of nearly 8 billion people and growing, and for every one of those people there is a completely different and unique experience, unique lifetimes. But after all the things that could be drastically contrasting between two separate lives, one thing will always be constant no matter who you are. Death. 

We spend a majority of our lives just making sure that we can survive in the long run. Go to school, get a job, save up enough money to hopefully sustain yourself until you inevitably kick the bucket. There is so much planning that needs to be done to ensure that you don’t go homeless or starve, so much stress that is caused just by the idea that the future will hold only despair unless you do something about it now. 

We don’t know when we will die. You and I may never get to that restful retirement that we all yearn for. For all we know, we could die tomorrow. And if that did happen, all that stress that we caused ourselves in earlier years for what? We’re so busy concerning ourselves about what is to come that we forget to live in the now.

Many people fear death, that it will come at an early age and that they will have an incomplete and unfulfilling life. This is why many people spend their time making sure they will be secure in the future, whether it be going to college to get a well paying job or tucking away a chunk of your salary for an older you to use. But according to the ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus,  fearing death gets in the way of enjoying life right now. Therefore, we should be more focused on making our experiences as great as possible instead of worrying about when they will stop. That was his way of saying that you only live once. Yolo!

Another thing we have to get over is this common thought that you can’t change your mind later. What I’m referring to is the plan that we are supposed to have for our future selves, that we can’t change our minds on what we want to dedicate ourselves to.  In 2012, Marina Keegan gave a commencement speech to her fellow graduates at Yale University. She said that we all hold this sentiment that it is somehow too late. Too late to accomplish, to create, to invent, to improve. “That it’s too late now to BEGIN a beginning and we must settle for continuance.” But this is not true at all. As long as we put ourselves up to it, as long as we hold on to that sense of possibility, we can do anything. Keegan said that thinking it’s too late is comical. And it very much is.

Life is finite, and so very, very short. We spend so much time thinking about our future selves and our untimely, inevitable demise that we forget about what we can do right now. You can study at a college, but don’t forget to have fun, interact, and experience things with people. Give yourself one hell of a college experience. You can work an uninteresting job, but don’t live for that job just for the paycheck. You can still have meaningful interactions, even if small. There are so many great things in this world that we have not done, have not seen, and we may never be able to. But what really matters is if you are going to take that knowledge to heart and discover what really makes your life worthwhile.