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I Choose To Live For Today

Tomorrow isn't here yet.

Katie Pogue

May 24, 2016

Bemidji State University

143

Intentional Grief

I'm young and have my whole life ahead of me, but I feel as though I should have everything already figured out. What is with the pressure these days? Choose a major, stick with it, go to school and study yourself into debt. Work until you can't feel your toes and don't forget to study in the middle of July. Get this high of an ACT score and you'll go to Harvard, but get this low of one and you'll die an idiot. Expectations. Standards. Pressure. It never ends. So that's why I'm done trying to meet your level of perfect, Society. I'm done trying to be the person you want me to be and I am making today the first day of the rest of my life. Today marks just the beginning of this new perspective I have. Today I choose to be me; to be the me that I created, not the person that society created for me. How can I pick a career when I don’t even know who I am? How can I decide the rest of my life when I don’t even know my right now? I'm not invincible, World. I'm only human. I'm perfectly imperfect and all that jazz. So I'm going to live for today, not for tomorrow or 10 years from now. Every day is a gift, so I better treat today like one.

Do you feel like you keep living in the future? Do me a favor and imagine if today was your last day. What would you do? What would you say? Would you go back and do anything differently? Who are you going to be remembered as? Someone who planned their life away or someone who believed in spontaneity and in living moment by moment? The beauty is that you decide. You get a choice. It’s never too late. Make today the best day of your life because tomorrow is no guarantee. Live for right now because if you keep worrying about tomorrow you'll miss out on life's greatest treasures. I know that I'm guilty of always wanting a plan. I would be like Cameron Diaz in What Happens in Vegas when she makes a plan to make a plan. I spent more time planning than I did actually doing. It was no way to live. In fact, it wasn't living.

So, I'm done letting society outline the course of my life. I'm done thinking about tomorrow when it's still today. I choose to be happy by my own standards because at the end of the day no one remembers you as the person who did everything society wanted her to do. They remember you for the kind of person you were. I choose to be extraordinary. I choose to be me.

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This article has not been reviewed by Odyssey HQ and solely reflects the ideas and opinions of the creator.

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