This past weekend, I was sitting on a plane with a million other Vanderbilt students, hours away from one of the rowdiest celebrations in America; Mardi Gras. Before boarding, I heard a man in his late 20's talking on the phone saying, "Somehow everyone on this flight is a sorority girl." Sadly, this was a pretty accurate statement -- 21-year-olds were drinking and everyone was buzzing with excitement about the weekend.

The flight started to pass quickly and before I knew it the pilot's voice filled the plane with the typical warning about fastening seat belts for our descent into New Orleans. But his message wasn't the commonplace warning I'd anticipated; he went on to talk about how we'd be experiencing turbulence. Usually, I have no problem with turbulence, a little shaking to remind me that I'm moving is actually more calming than the eerie still feeling of being suspended at an unfathomable altitude in a vacuum of stale air.

The following turbulence was more than just a little shaking, it rocked the whole plane as we held tightly to our possessions for at least seven minutes. Looking out my window at the wing, I watched its violent wobble resemble a bird trying to gain height. I consider myself a pretty laid back person, but for a split second I couldn't help but wonder if this would be it for all of us.

I wasn't alone in this thought; all around me there was chatter about the plane's fate. But to my surprise there wasn't an ounce of fear in the air; people were laughing, yelling at each other to chug their drinks, joking about their parents hearing about a plane crash that killed so many Vandy kids. No one, myself included, truly believed the plane would crash. Throughout the turbulence which somehow finally settled, there seemed no doubt that we'd all make it to the party alive and well. This left only one thought in my mind, which I immediately wrote down on my phone with shaky hands; people think they're invincible.

I've heard this all my life in reference to teenagers drunk driving and jumping through roofs and taking drugs made in anonymous basements, but in that moment, I wholeheartedly believed it. The question is... why?

We live in a country where time is money and success is measured in salary. Excess is the only acceptable form of enjoyment; binge-eating, binge-drinking, binge-spending. Self-reflection and mindfulness aren't encouraged as much as getting a lucrative job or having an impressive social media account. Security and stability aren't mental, they're physical objects and hefty bank accounts. There's no time to sit back and think, "If I died today, would I be satisfied with my life?" We assume we have all the time in the world to achieve these financial goals and that we can work on everything else afterwards; the provincial future is always just around the corner.

I am lucky enough to go to a school where I feel like privilege is palpable the moment you step on campus. Maybe privilege breeds this sense of invincibility; we're too important to die young or suddenly because that's what we've been raised to expect from the world. The word "no" is a myth. We assume that the luck that has guided most of our lives will extend across all facets; what's one more drink or a little bit of air turbulence?

We love to blame social media for our problems, but this isn't necessarily an empty claim. Every day we watch videos of people like Jay Alvarrez skydiving, John John Florence surfing and traveling the world, fatal bombings and wars happening in far, far away places. We laugh at fail compilations of people falling from incredible heights or landing a skateboard jump on their heads, never truly pondering how those situations ended. The fear of missing out becomes a justification for doing everything we want regardless of how much it costs because "everyone else is doing it". We're taught that our dreams can and will come true, that everything somehow works out, to leave fear out of the equation.

Philosophers argue about true human nature, but until you face adversity, it seems like all people deep down want to believe that the world is a just place. Good things happen to good people, and anything that disconfirms this belief is easy to ignore or turn away from. When watching the wing of a plane shake like it's going to detach, my instinct is that of course it won't, that can't happen to me and my friends. We laugh about the times we went to the hospital for drinking so much we were a fraction from stopping our hearts, the time we were an inch from the highway median going 80 miles per hour in the middle of a strange state, for fear of the alternative; acknowledging our mortality.

It's a combination of being human, being privileged, being young; we can't face the future if we think it could be stolen from us at any moment. We think we're invincible and that's why we take so many risks, make so many impulsive decisions. We live in a culture where risk equals reward and we're constantly comparing ourselves to others. Maybe it takes adversity to dispel this belief, maybe it's our innocence or maybe it's something more sinister. Maybe we'll come in contact with it and maybe we won't; maybe we'll always face the world with the blind confidence of youth.