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.