YOLO

This little acronym has popped up a few times lately.  It has come into vogue in our house via one of my kids and it's echoing in my brain from different things I'm hearing.  I'm hoping that a cathartic release in writing will remove it - for me it's become one of those songs stuck between our ears that we can't seem to shake.

Yolo stands for "you only live once" and seems a gratuitous approach to justify an 'anything goes' approach to life.  I'm sure in a college sense that's exactly how it's intended.  As we age however, it carries a darker and slightly more sinister connotation...'do it now before you're dead'.  I'm not a fatalist, but I am aware of the finite and precarious nature of our existence, so I understand how you could hear Yolo said in a reaper's whisper.  Yolo's sprung to life in both ways recently.

While working in another city last week, I was told the story by a colleague of a recent trip he'd made to Costa Rica.  All was going well on the flight until final approach into San Jose and the aircraft he was on suddenly jerked skyward under maximum power.  He said the captain came on the intercom and said in a more-than-slightly fazed voice.."Ladies an Gentlemen, you'll notice we aren't on the ground, and I want to preface what I'm about to tell you with the fact that there's nothing at all wrong with us, this airplane or anything, and we are in no danger. However, just as we were about to land, the aircraft in front of us crashed on the runway and we had to pull up through the fireball it had created.  I'm going to have to radio back to headquarters and determine what to do, as very frankly we don't see that situation very much".  The story had them divert after another hour in the air to the country's other airport and all was fine. Except for the people on that first plane obviously.  But it does make you think  - Yolo.

Notwithstanding that happy travel story, I'm considering re-using an airplane ticket from a trip untaken last year, and doing something quite out-of -the ordinary with it..on the basis that the opportunity presents itself, and the conditions under which I can re-use it are a tad odd.  I'm hesitating as it seems a quite selfish thing to do, but my wife has quoted Yolo at me as justification.  I get that, and yet it doesn't quite sit right still.

If everything we did was justified by a Yolo approach to life, we'd certainly be more carefree, but at the same time I'm not certain it's a better way of living.  Sure you  only live once, and need to make the most out of today...but in the same way we wouldn't recognize pain without pleasure, joy without sadness and summer without winter, there's also something to be said in defense of balance.  It may not be as sexy, or freedom inspiring but the merits of working to make the normal into the special are not to be underrated.  After all, it's the journey that counts, not reaching the destination because we really do only live once.