this is the secret of life

Okay, listen up, bitches, this is important.

This year, I'm going to be The Answer to Life, The Universe and Everything: that's forty-two fucking years old, in case you're not a Douglas Adams fan, and while I still feel like I'm maybe half that, I have still managed somehow to acquire some small measure of wisdom in my years. And while most of the time, wisdom is the kind of thing you can't pass on to others, most of the time you've got to let people live and learn for themselves, sometimes there are just elemental truths so basic that you've just got to pass them along, that you've got to stand up and scream them at the top of your lungs because it's important, deeply and desperately vital, that other people understand these things as well.

So from my lofty perch atop this pile of years I've amassed, here is my advice to you, advice you must take to heart and never, never forget:

ALWAYS LIVE NOW.

From the time we're kids, we get told all about the things we "have" to do. We've got to go to school, we've got to do our homework, our chores, we've got to get a job, earn money, save money, pay our bills, take care of our responsibilities and plan for the future. We get these rules and regulations handed to us, our lives roped off into narrow little aisles of must-do's and cannots, and then - when something incredible comes along, some once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, we end up saying to ourselves (or having others say to us) "Oh no, I can't do that, I have school/work/responsibilities to attend to."

Y'know what? Fuck that shit.

You've got one life: if there are more after this one, you don't know about it, and can't be sure what it'll bring. One life, and only maybe fifty years of that life when you're not either too young to be able to legally do what you want, or too old to enjoy it comfortably. Fifty years: eighteen thousand days, four hundred and thirty-eight thousand hours, and once each one of those hours is past? it's gone, you can never get it back. And of those hours, there's going to be enough time, way too much time, spent on sleeping and working and studying and doing chores and mundane stuff that has to be done to get by, but brings no joy, no enlightenment, no passion into your life. All the responsibilities that everyone says are supposed to come first? Guess what: they'll still be there when you finish doing the things that give you joy, the things that make memories to savor and treasure over the course of a lifetime. Assignments can be made up, work hours can be made up, there's always room to do the mundane stuff later. But the chance to do something crazy, to live a dream, will be over, done, gone, and there will be no way later to make that up, no way to go back and recapture the joy you sacrificed in favor of stuff that, in the grand scheme of things, really doesn't matter.

Always live now. You can responsibly plan for the future as much as you want, and guess what? The future's gonna do what it wants anyway, throw twists and turns at you that you can't be prepared for, and all the plans you sacrifice your nows for will go to hell anyway. Anything could happen, and probably will; and all you've got that you can count on is now. You must never sacrifice today's possibilities and chances for a maybe-future; it's a bad gamble, an unfair trade, and you'll be sorry, in the end, if you do.

When you are seventy-five years old, you will not remember or care that you worked eight-hour days or got a raise or turned in your assignments on time. But you will remember the dreams you dared to pursue, the moments of crazy joy, the adventures you had, and you will never regret taking those chances, and daring to live now, as fully as possible.

Always live now. Never postpone dreams and a chance for joy until later. Never, ever think that the mundane realities of life are more important than the living of it. Run away and join the circus; follow that rock band across the country with your last few dollars; do what makes you happy, what makes your heart sing. ALWAYS. LIVE. NOW.

In the end, you'll be really, really glad you did. I promise.

...Lecture concluded. Now go out and fucking live.