The year of the YOLO

Another year done.  Accomplished.  It's been quite the year.  Impromptu graduate programs, new friends, old faithfuls, ups, downs, travels, marvels, goals accomplished, failures endured.  C'est la vie.  Carpe diem.  Or the modern twist: YOLO.  You only live once.  On my birthday this year I pacted with V to seize the day because there should be no regrets in these final fabulous years of our twenties.

Forget tigers.  Forget roosters and snakes.  This is the year of the YOLO.

Thankfully, V committed to being the good-bad influence on me.  Sleep in the grave, there will be time enough for it when you're dead.  There may be days when caffeine has to jump start my day or months when the checkbook doesn't quite balance, but no one ever looks back on their years saying, "Man, I really wish I hadn't had such a rich life of experiences."

A similar influence: KGLove...

One of the coolest girls I know. Her wise words will stay with me into the year of YOLO as I reluctantly got excited about how great life is going. When I pumped the breaks on my excitement because disappointment threatened on the horizon, she told me that the thrill was worthwhile, "because everything that comes along is worth getting excited over.  It's the best thing that ever happened to you until it's not... Then you add it to the list of blessings-in-disguise until something comes along that makes you understand why it all happened in the first place."  The Gone Wrong list may be long, but the forever optimist in me knows that it all turns out in the end, otherwise, it's not the end.

Then there's Rob:

We both showed our out-of-state ID's for a couple of local brews and realized that our upbringing in this sweet little college town was the quintessential childhood that most only see in the movies.  And while we both cherish those formative years, our exodus from the town was so that we could know how special our lives were, how much we had been given, and to harness our hunger to do good works.  I grew up with the idea that for those to whom much has been given, much is expected.  We echoed the sentiment tonight in that we feel an obligation to do more with our lives because of these gifts.  But more importantly, the key is not to look at it as obligation, but an opportunity.  It's people like Rob that reassure me, not all who wander are lost... They just ventured off the beaten path to make the world a better place.