You Only Live Once Right?

I hear the expression “You only live once! So live it up!” quite often.  Usually I hear this when somebody blowing a bunch of money on a dinner, a new big time electronic gadget, or a week vacation that costs a small fortune.  People seem to equate spending money with “living.” 

 

“Well you don’t want to die a millionare!”  “You gotta use it or lose it.”

People are indoctrinated with the idea that in order to truly live you must drive a new car,  own a big house, eat at nice restaurants, and in general “live it up.”  After all if you are not living you must be dying right?  This life comes at a price of course.  All of this stuff that we apparently call living requires money.  Most people aren’t born with tons and tons of excess cash so instead they have to work for it.  They run on the work treadmill that continues to spit out packaging and products, as well as stress and small bits of momentary satiation.  

I’m lucky that I learned pretty quickly the meaning our modern day culture puts on the expression “You only live once” is complete bullshit.  Life is more than weekly trips to Best Buy and full cable packages.  It’s more than a nine to five job in a cubicle.  Perhaps Tyler Durdan said it best:  “You're not your job. You're not how much money you have in the bank. You're not the car you drive. You're not the contents of your wallet. You're not your fucking khakis.”

I like how he really cuts to chase.

 The funny thing is I like the phrase “You only live once.”  It is so true!  You really do only live once (to my knowledge).  So why would you want to waste it working at a job to chase things you don’t need?  Why would you blow $10,000 on a vacation when that could cover monthly costs for several months and could go biking or camping with your family for weeks making truly lasting memories and experiences?  Why would you want to mortgage your life for a mortgage?

If the price of things really reflected the joy or life we got out of them bike rides, friends, barbecues, days at the beach, and photos with loved ones would cost millions of dollar.  On the other hand new cars, excessively big houses, jobs, and bosses would be damn near free.

You only live once.  I am going to spend my life living instead of spending my life spending.