The little things

Break the cycle

Many great fictional characters such as Margo Roth Spiegelman and Jaspar Jordan, have changed my view on life.

In one life changing night of Quentin Jacobsen's otherwise uneventful life, Margo Roth Spiegelman showed him a side of the world he had never seen, but she also said this:

'Did you know that for pretty much the entire history of the human species, the average life span was less than thirty years? You could count on ten years or so of real adulthood, right?

There was no planning for retirement, There was no planning for a career. There was no planning. No time for plannning. No time for a future. But then the life spans started getting longer, and people started having more and more future. And now life has become the future.

Every moment of your life is lived for the future--you go to high school so you can go to college so you can get a good job so you can get a nice house so you can afford to send your kids to college so they can get a good job so they can get a nice house so they can afford to send their kids to college.'

She realised that life is a cycle where no one ever seems to do anything that isn't a stepping stone to get the next thing. High school, college, job, house, kids. While not everyone does exactly that most people do a version of it.

Jasper Jordan, though his death much more imminent that mine, provided a decision that either we can live our remaining days worrying, or doing whatever the hell we want.

And he holds much the same principle as Margo but at a much more basic level.

Be impulsive, be spontaneous, be free. Do something just because it looks fun, don't do something you don't want to because it's what somebody else thinks is best for you, take control of your own life.

Challenge what you think is wrong, stand up for what you believe in, live for now and stop planning for the future, because you never know when there is going to be no tomorrow. Break the cycle.