YOLO

not the county in Northern California

YOLO- you only live once- was once the rallying cry of young people preparing to do something dumb. On occasion, those dumb things would risk the singular life said individual had, which I always found ironic. #YOLO would be found on pictures of people wasting money on extravagant meals, prior to buying a house or paying off a car. Teenagers would yell YOLO before some crazy prank or stunt, as if to say, “I am invincible!” I was too old for YOLO, only using it in a semi ironic fashion to point out when someone was being an idiot. For example, when I came across a passed out 20 something in a wheelchair, missing shoes, being pushed down the Strip in Vegas at 3:00 in the afternoon. That might have elicited an eye roll and “YOLO?” to whomever I was walking with.

You only live once.

What will you do with that information? Will you use it to justify dumb decisions? Will you learn to maximize your time to make the most of life? Would you be willing to contemplate whether it is even accurate? Enter Friedrich Nietzsche and the idea of Eternal Return.

“What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: ‘This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and everything unutterably small or great in your life will have to return to you, all in the same succession and sequence—even this spider and this moonlight between the trees, and even this moment and I myself. The eternal hourglass of existence is turned upside down again and again, and you with it, speck of dust!'” –Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science

Eternal Return is either BS, real, or a great philosophical thought experiment. It is the idea that whatever life you live, you will live indefinitely, with no end. Every moment of sadness, happiness, joy, stress, failure, fear, ALL OF IT. Every lie you tell, wound you suffer, obstacle you overcome, will all repeat in a never-ending loop. What decisions would you make if you knew you had to make them forever? Would you stay at the cruddy job working for a boss you hate? Would you continue with an addiction that you hate, just because it is hard to quit, if you knew this was it forever?

As a quick aside, mathematically, this is the most likely outcome after death. If you exist, which you do, than the odds of your existence are >0, even if that is .000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001. If time and space are infinite, which is debatable but probably close enough for our purpose, than you are multiplying the odds of your existence (>0) by infinity (∞) .  ∞ x n>0=  ∞ I am not telling you that you will repeat the same life over and over again, I cannot know what happens after we die. I am just stating that unlike some other claims, I can at least provide a mathematical defense of this view.

“Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: ‘You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine.’ If this thought gained possession of you, it would change you as you are or perhaps crush you.”–Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science

For today, it is more the thought experiment that matters. What the above quote asks of us is to step back and ask yourself, “If I were told that I am destined to repeat this existence, ad infinitum, how would I feel? Would I feel joy, or dread?” If the answer is joy, you can rest easy knowing that the choices you are currently making are the correct ones. If your immediate response to that idea is to tense up, cringe, or anything similar, the time has come to evaluate why that is the case. What is it about your life that causes you to fear the idea of being stuck in it?

Almost any person can put up with something for a short time. We can all force ourselves to get through a rough time at school, or work, simply by telling ourselves it is temporary. If you were to realize that all these little moments of suffering might repeat over and over and over and over again, suddenly the motivation to make some changes comes a little easier. It is one thing to put up with a friend who treats you poorly in the short term, but to commit to an eternity of being put down? That is asking too much.

I want to be quite clear. This is in no way advocating for avoidance of everything unpleasant. Life is full of trade-offs. We do have to sacrifice our short-term pleasure and comfort for long-term goals. It is simply a matter of ratios. Is a year of strict exercise and healthy eating worth the temporary discomfort or inconvenience, if it provides decades of healthy living in the future? Yes, those decades, across eternity, will really add up. It is the day in and day out suffering through minutiae that compounds. The slow wearing away because we tell ourselves that it is bad, just not bad enough. Short-term sacrifices for long-term gains? Those sacrifices are investments in your future, with a near endless upper limit on the Return on Investment.

Those who have the YOLO mindset often are selling themselves short, wasting that one precious life they claim to have. Only by stepping outside of that, and looking long term, do we gain the proper perspective. By realizing that each moment may be an eternity, we accept the truth that every single moment counts. We may live it once, or forever, but whichever is true, you need to make the most of it. To quote Mr. Durden, “This is your life, and it is ending one minute at a time.” Live your life in such a way that the idea of repeating it forever brings a feeling of bliss and comfort. If you do that, whenever the moment comes that you hit the end, you will be able to look back and smile. A smile that is born of the knowledge that whatever the future holds, you have nothing to fear, because you have not squandered the opportunity given to you. This is your life, and it is ending. Don’t waste it.

Love,
Dad