You Only Live Once
Back in 2011,thanks a lot to Drake,most of us,as bustling teenagers had YOLO as our motto. The idea behind the You Only Live Once motto was that,well,one only has one life to live so they must live it to the maximum with no holds barred.
Although, to be honest, we used the motto to excuse our wild teenage excursions and i'm sure Drake did too,it actually has a far more reaching meaning and relevance than how we interpreted it back in the day. If you are a regular reader of this blog,you would know from the numerous posts that i am an avid advocate for the concept of living in the moment and hold the belief that it can significantly improve one's life.
Drake was actually right, mum,you only do live once,in this moment,right now. It is the only time you have control over. It is the only time you have the ability to change your circumstances for the better. It is the only time you can immerse yourself in the universal current and actively contribute to the ways of the universe,anything before and after that being totally out of your control.
One might argue that the reverse is actually true,that we live everyday and only die once. That is only true if one holds the view that the definition of life is a compounded number of days that we are given and have to "do life" within. The problem with that particular view however is that we end up setting up targets for ourselves within which we assume we should have achieved what we set out to achieve .Failure to achieve those targets then leads to one having the notion that they have "wasted their days on this earth" and beat themselves up for it and end up succumbing to mental health issues.
Because of the unpredictability of life,we should always try to see things as they are,observe things as they are and let everything go as it goes. We should live life with imperturbable composure, accepting that there is nothing like good days and bad days. Both the good and the bad days are an equally necessary part of life because,like the wise man 50 Cent once said,"sunny days wouldn't feel special if it wasn't for the rainy days".
Imperturbability is what allows us to appreciate every single day because we accept it as it is,warts and all. We don't concern and stress ourselves with the components that makes up a good or bad day but rather with the appreciation that we get to be here,experiencing that day.
As aforementioned, i do agree that yes we do live everyday and die once,but only physiologically. It is pointless to live for a hundred years when your soul was only alive in your childhood days. If you are going to "live everyday"and one day be able to look back and appreciate the life that you have lived in those days,paradoxically,you will have to live once in each moment and every moment of those days so as to fully appreciate the beauty of that everyday living.
We should not hold onto anything that we have done or what we have to do. We should rather just reflect on it so that when a moment comes that we have to apply that knowledge from the past,we instinctively do it without having to think about it.When we allow our minds to wander about elsewhere instead of focusing on living in the now,we fail to do the one thing that we are essentially on this earth to do,live. Like i mentioned on this post,moment after moment we are creating something even if we don't instantly see it and that itself is living.
There is no connection between yourself yesterday and yourself today.The living you did yesterday is gone with the wind and now you are doing another living, again.This happens moment after moment for every single day of our lives.Just like charcoal does not necessarily become ashes,there are each individual existences, your temporal existences every moment are all independent from each other. In short,you only get to live a moment once and never again. That is how special and unique every moment of your life is.
Although, to be honest, we used the motto to excuse our wild teenage excursions and i'm sure Drake did too,it actually has a far more reaching meaning and relevance than how we interpreted it back in the day. If you are a regular reader of this blog,you would know from the numerous posts that i am an avid advocate for the concept of living in the moment and hold the belief that it can significantly improve one's life.
Drake was actually right, mum,you only do live once,in this moment,right now. It is the only time you have control over. It is the only time you have the ability to change your circumstances for the better. It is the only time you can immerse yourself in the universal current and actively contribute to the ways of the universe,anything before and after that being totally out of your control.
One might argue that the reverse is actually true,that we live everyday and only die once. That is only true if one holds the view that the definition of life is a compounded number of days that we are given and have to "do life" within. The problem with that particular view however is that we end up setting up targets for ourselves within which we assume we should have achieved what we set out to achieve .Failure to achieve those targets then leads to one having the notion that they have "wasted their days on this earth" and beat themselves up for it and end up succumbing to mental health issues.
Because of the unpredictability of life,we should always try to see things as they are,observe things as they are and let everything go as it goes. We should live life with imperturbable composure, accepting that there is nothing like good days and bad days. Both the good and the bad days are an equally necessary part of life because,like the wise man 50 Cent once said,"sunny days wouldn't feel special if it wasn't for the rainy days".
Imperturbability is what allows us to appreciate every single day because we accept it as it is,warts and all. We don't concern and stress ourselves with the components that makes up a good or bad day but rather with the appreciation that we get to be here,experiencing that day.
As aforementioned, i do agree that yes we do live everyday and die once,but only physiologically. It is pointless to live for a hundred years when your soul was only alive in your childhood days. If you are going to "live everyday"and one day be able to look back and appreciate the life that you have lived in those days,paradoxically,you will have to live once in each moment and every moment of those days so as to fully appreciate the beauty of that everyday living.
We should not hold onto anything that we have done or what we have to do. We should rather just reflect on it so that when a moment comes that we have to apply that knowledge from the past,we instinctively do it without having to think about it.When we allow our minds to wander about elsewhere instead of focusing on living in the now,we fail to do the one thing that we are essentially on this earth to do,live. Like i mentioned on this post,moment after moment we are creating something even if we don't instantly see it and that itself is living.
There is no connection between yourself yesterday and yourself today.The living you did yesterday is gone with the wind and now you are doing another living, again.This happens moment after moment for every single day of our lives.Just like charcoal does not necessarily become ashes,there are each individual existences, your temporal existences every moment are all independent from each other. In short,you only get to live a moment once and never again. That is how special and unique every moment of your life is.
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