The Truth About #YOLO - Kristine Tsiknaki (@DarcRose22)

On Friday I found myself explaining what #yolo means to a new friend of mine. Out of any social context and with no knowledge of all the negative connotations the word has accumulated, he immediately found it a great word and a great mentality. This instantly reminded me of the first time I heard that word used, my first night in my student dorm in London, when all the new people got together in the common room and spent the whole night drinking, chatting and becoming friends with each other. Yolo was used in the context of ‘Don’t go to bed, have another drink and let’s do some shots’. Please, feel free to roll your eyes and say ‘students!’ with a sigh. You can imagine how it can all go downhill from there and how very soon you end up showing up in class straight from the club and desperately trying to stay awake, whilst sitting in a small table with your lecturer and the two other students who signed up for that class, till he gives up and makes you some really strong coffee. Bless him.

See how bad yolo is? Well, it’s not. I can give you a knife and ask you to use it. If you go and kill someone with it, it’s not the knife’s fault. And me, I just meant use it to cut that delicious juicy stake called life and enjoy it bit by bit. The famous, and with mainly positive connotations, Carpe Diem is a command, prompting you to seize the day and do something with it. Yolo is just a simple statement: You Only Live Once. Maybe that’s why it’s so much more effective. It doesn’t tell you what to do or even to do anything at all, it just tells you that, no matter what you decide, you have a certain time frame. Ultimately, though, the choice is yours. Do you want to learn a new language, a musical instrument or climb MT Everest? You only live once so you should probably get to it. We’re not getting any younger here.

But what if what you want is to dance all night, drink and not have a care in the world? My answer is simple: then that is what you should do. No matter if you die tomorrow or 80 years from now, every single moment you are alive is precious. That doesn’t mean you need to devote it to some greater cause, unless of course that is what you want to do, in which case by all means! Freedom means being able to make bad choices alongside the good ones. And if you are happier with a cocktail in your hand than you are with a book, then who am I to tell you not to do that? At the end of the day, we are all just a bunch of perfectly imperfect creatures, full of emotions, ideas and dreams. So, if all you have is your life, you need to do what makes you happy and stop worrying about anyone else’s opinion. If it’s right for you, that’s all the reason you need!