“Wake up and Live”-Bob Marley
There are 60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour, 24 hours in a day, 7 days in a week, and 52 weeks in a year. From the instant we are born, these seconds, minutes, hours, days and weeks are counting down. While we may think that we have plenty of time in this world, our time may come sooner than we think. The sad thing about life is that we never know when that time will be. Thus, we must live our precious lives to the fullest. So much of our time is spent focusing on the likes on our posts, the amount of money in our wallets, and how many friends we have. However, in order to truly enjoy life, we must focus our sights on more important things.
I have always said “Life is a gift not a guarantee”, and I have realized this to be true so many times. What may be present now may not be present tomorrow, so never take the things that you love for granted. After my mere 21 years of living, I’ve learned so much about what life truly is. Life is about exploring, adventuring, and learning. It’s about not giving up when every bit of you wants to, but you persevere and keep going. When everything inside of you is telling you "No", but you work up the courage to tell yourself "Yes".
The saying goes “everybody dies but not everybody lives”, and I have never heard a truer set of words in my life. We are only on this earth for a short period of time, so we must not live a life of regrets but rather rejoice in what has been given to us. When we grow older, we don’t want to look back on our lives and say “what if” but rather look back and say “I did”. Life is nothing but a plethora of choices. We can either choose to enjoy our lives or we can choose to dread our lives.
Go out and do the things that scare you, face your fears, and take the leap. Text that friend you haven't spoken to in years and tell them “thank you” for not letting you end your life. Call your parents today and let them know you are so thankful for every sacrifice they have made for you. Take your grandparents out to lunch and listen to their stories. Life is about telling those that matter the most to you how much you love them.
Seizing the day, ladies and gentlemen, is about getting out of toxic relationships and learning that truly loving yourself entitles you to a beautiful and healthy relationship. It's about going to bed at 9:00pm so you can wake up with plenty of time to eat at your favorite breakfast place. Life is about going outside and actually 'smelling the roses'. It means finally letting go of that ex-boyfriend that broke your heart and all the pain and the regret that comes with it. Most importantly, life is about going forward and not looking back. Life is about living in the NOW and not the past. We can never start a new chapter in our lives if we refuse to turn the page.
Now is the time to finally learn how to play the guitar, run that race, book that flight, and tell those that mean the most to you that you love them. These are opportunities that God has so graciously placed in our lives. TAKE THEM!
Stop living this life as if each day is guaranteed. You will never get a re-do of this exact moment ever again. Go out and start living. Stop worrying about how others perceive you, stop worrying about what others think of you, and stop worrying about what others want for you. Do what makes YOU happy. At the end of the day, the only person who can control your destiny is yourself. God has a plan for you. He has already written your story; He is just waiting for you to go out and tell it. So...go out and Carpe This Diem.
