There’s a question in this weekend’s Ask A Manager forum about how you (general you) live your life. The original poster (OP) asked how people viewed the term YOLO among other things. First of all, I have lived three times so YOLO is not applicable to me! I‘m including the video from Lonely Island (feat. Adam Levine and Kendrick Lamarr) here. I have a different video for my main vid.
Here’s my answer. It’s long and complicated, of course, because it’s me.
What do I think of the phrase YOLO? I think it’s meaningless. Despite my quip, yeah, we all have one life. That just is, as the kids say, what it is. The meme about grabbing life by the balls and doing all this risky business, yawn. It’s so boring and bro-ey. It’s very Silicon Valley, and I just want to take a long nap whenever I hear the phrase.
The song by Lonely Island is hilarious because it goes in the opposite direction to the extreme. It’s about how you only live once so be extra-careful so you don’t die. Adam Levine sings the hook, and it’s super-catchy. Kendrick Lamarr comes in halfway through to rap financial advice–and he makes sense.
I love how they mock the YOLO meme, but also, they’re pointing out that you can go to the extreme in many different ways. It’s hilarious, but they’re not wrong. They’re not right, either, but they’re not completely wrong. (To them YOLO stands for You Oughta Look Out.)
Here’s my thoughts from actually having died twice. And, I promise you this isn’t as bleak as it sounds. Nothing we do matters. We’re all going to die. I’ve done it–twice. It’s not terrible. It’s not great, either, but it’s not the worst experience of my life by a country mile.
I’m very lucky in that I don’t have to worry too much about money. I work for myself, and I can avoid travel. For the first year after my medical crisis, I lived day to day. I didn’t think much about my future because I was just marveling that I was fucking alive!
I was looking out the window every day and just soaking it all in. I have always been a negative person all my life, and while that has not completely changed (I’m still highly critical of things), I have become more grateful about things in my life. Hell, I’m grateful to be alive at all.
I should be dead. I cannot emphasize this enough. Nor can I overstate what this has done to my frame of mind. Every day I have is a bonus. That doesn’t mean I’m living my best life or making the most of the time I have left, but it does mean that I’m fully appreciating that I still have a life.
I want to be clear. I’m not a saint. I’m not suddenly looking for blessings in every corner. I’m still cranky, salty, and prone to making sarcastic remarks. I’m not a different person in that the core of me is still the same.
But. And this is a big but. I have expanded into being a much better person than I was before. A much less neurotic person, that’s for sure. My depression is down 90%; my anxiety 60%, and my body hatred has completely disappeared. All of these are things I’ve struggled with all my life–along with suicidal ideation. Or rather, I did not want to be alive. I didn’t necessarily want to kill myself, but I didn’t see the point in life.
All of that is gone. I appreciate life. I look out the window and just marvel at the beauty. In the first few months after I got home from the hospital, I w as moved to tears by looking out the window. The blue sky. The green grass. The shining sun. How the hell could I exist in the same realm as this beauty? Anyone who knows me knows that I’m not a big outdoors person because I’m allergic to everything under the sun–including the sun. Nature is fine as long as there is something separating me from it. I still feel that way because of the allergies, but I can still appreciate it through my window.
In my second year of rebirth, I need to start thinking about my future. Like, I can cautiously think that I actually have one. Which means I need to do something with it. I know that writing is a thing of the past, and it’s time to look at the future. I’m always going to write because it’s in my blood, but it’s not going to get me anywhere.
Will content creation (ugh) get me anywhere? Probably not. But it has more a chance to do so than does writing. I have watched many different kinds of YouTubers, and there are certain things that make them popular. One is shouting a lot. I don’t know why, but it seems like people want to be shouted at. I can’t stand it and won’t watch someone who’s constantly screaming. I’ll put up with a shout here and there, but someone who is always hollering at the top of their lungs is a hard no for me.
Another thing I observe is that people like peppy. Most of the popular YouTubers are upbeat and positive. Which, fine. It’s not my cuppa, but whatever. However, I don’t think I could sustain that for any length of time. I will say that it’s hard for me to not sound flat when recorded, which is weird because I haev charisma for days in real life. I think it’s in part because of how I interact with people, though. It’s because I listen carefully and am able to draw people out.
My brother taped me for a minute, and it was excruciating to listen to. The problem is that I’m low-key. I don’t put a lot of inflection in my voice in part beacuse I don’t really talk to anyone throughout the day–except my cat. It’s partly because of my affect issues (too long to go into right now), and it’s also because, well, I just don’t want to make the effort.
It’s funny. I can talk about any one subject for hours if you let me. And I have. But put a microphone in front of me, and I clam up. I know that’s the norm, but it’s so weird. No one is listening to me (except my brother), but I’m still very self-conscious. I really have to amp it up and get comfortable talking on mike. I also don’t like how my voice sounds recorded, but most people don’t.
Here’s the thing, though. Most of the things I hate about myself, physically, anyway, I’m over. Dying definitely put many things into perspective. Now, it’s time for me to take the next step.