Newsflash: "Yolo," is completely true! The 90s rock band Oasis got it wrong when they said "You and I are gonna live forever."
The truth is that not one of us are either immortal or invincible.
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Did you hear that? You are not invincible nor am I.
When we are very young and maybe for you and I now, this thinking that we are invincible manifests itself in many behaviors. Here are some examples from my own life.
When I was young, I ate everything that I wanted, because food and soda right?
Towards the end of high school and the beginning of my college years, I worked at the local Pizza Hut. It was not a glorious job, but not the worst job in the world either. I would get there at 8:00 A.M. in the morning five days a week and I would fold pizza boxes and do some other prep for the restaurant like oiling the pans and filling the ice bucket. The perk of that job was that I was told that I could drink as much soda as I wanted during my four or five hour shift. You know where this is going right? I would say that on average, I would drink four to six glasses of soda per day, usually Mountain Dew or Dr. Pepper, the worst offenders.
I often get to speak to junior high school students about nutrition and I share this as a story of what not to do when you are young!
The point is that I was young and didn't think of the effects of drinking four to six cups of soda five times per week. Now I am in my 30s and I have Type 2 diabetes. Do you think the soda had something to do with the weight gain that is the main cause of my diabetes. I now take four to six pills in the morning and at night to control my blood sugar levels and because I still haven't learned how to modify my behavior, my blood sugar levels are, in doctor's words, "Uncontrolled."
So, that's a situation where I am in control of my own destiny. I can also encourage people like you to change your ways, in that area of life, before it becomes too late.
I have other people slowly dying around me because of different struggles from cancer to Parkinson's Disease. Through these and other examples, I am reminded that life is fragile and we are not invincible. What about the teen or adult dealing with anxiety, depression and the many other mental illnesses that exist, or the family going through a divorce. These too, are constant reminders that life is fragile and that we are not invincible.
As a lover of music, song lyrics speak to me a lot. As I began with some song lyrics from Oasis, I will end with some song lyrics penned by my own musician friend Jim Karpowitz. "Every day that we've been given is a gift from God above, so in thankful contemplation, let us learn to live them carefully and wisely!"
