Lessons Learned: Past, present and future — Different lives

Content warning: This article contains references to mental illness and suicide.

Where do you see yourself five years from now? Where do you see yourself in 10?

Honestly, I don’t. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in life, it’s to “expect the unexpected.” And God do I wish it wasn’t the case.

What went so wrong that I can’t imagine what life would look like a few years from now? Hell, I don’t even think I can see myself a few weeks from now. But if I were to imagine, I would like to imagine myself okay. Not happy, but okay. Because there’s nothing more I could really ask for. And to me, okay is waking up to find that the world isn’t ending (or maybe not yet). And that’s okay. I’ll be okay. How relieving is it to know that the fate of the world doesn’t rest on your shoulders? That’s one less burden to carry, and hopefully less back pain as well. Maybe back pain doesn’t make it okay after all…

If I could turn back the clock, I don’t think I would. After all, I don’t know of a life that isn’t my own. Sure I could imagine — I could spend my days lost in thought, thinking of a life that is and isn’t mine. Maybe I could bring people back from the dead. Tell [him] not to go on that ski trip. One that would be his last. But that wouldn’t make me who I am today. The pain of losing someone — a morbid reminder of our own mortality — it’s only made me more human. It made me not stronger, but more gentle — not guarded, but vulnerable. Because when life takes and takes, you get tired. Tired of the pain, of the late nights sobbing. Tired of being sad. So you take back what little time you have. Out of all of the possible timelines we could be living in, we were lucky enough to share this fleeting moment together. And even if just for a moment, it seems our souls have touched one another, like a stain on your favorite hoodie. The one you hold dear and wear when the world seems just a bit too cold.

At the end of the day, or rather at the end of all time, when the last star dies and we reach the inevitable heat death of the universe (yikes!), our lives are nothing but an insignificant afterthought in the vast ocean of existence. So when the waves come crashing down, and it feels like you can’t breathe, let go. Because we are the universe experiencing itself. We are silly little atoms and subatomic particles that got together and decided to be. To be conscious. To be alive. To be matter (haha physics joke) and to matter. 

So I will continue to pursue this sinful, hedonistic life. I will be living, loving and laughing. I will continue to fuck around and find out. Because when life is so insignificant, so devoid of meaning, it is up to us to find our own. And maybe you don’t want to go to Hell. Maybe you want to lead a virtuous life, to work hard and to make an honest living. Don’t get me wrong but I sure as hell don’t. People are so complex, so much more than the model citizen, model student, model anything. Because there is no model. We cannot fit into something that doesn’t exist, something arbitrarily designed by dead people before us. Because who cares about them? They’ve had their time, and the present is now yours.

If there’s a common denominator in all the reasons I decided NOT to kill myself, it’s spite. Spiteful of a world that is so indifferent and unforgiving. Spiteful to be born, to live and to survive. So I will do it. I will live and do it out of spite. And I’ll make a lot of friends (and maybe even enemies), I’ll make the world rue giving the speck of dust that is my life. In five years I will still be throwing ass. In 10 years, I will be suffering from the consequences of my actions (even more back pain) at the ripe, old age of 32. But regardless, I refuse to waste my time. Waste my chances and opportunities. In my 22 years of life, I’ve had so much taken, so much lost and so much never had. But instead of dwelling on the what if’s and on what could be, I live and die today.

So don’t kill yourself — you’re too sexy. Live your life, and live it differently.

Man Truong is a junior writing on reflections made in life. In a world full of different personal beliefs and philosophies, he makes sense of it in his column, “Lessons Learned.”