The You Only Live Once (#YOLO) meme has bothered me for some time, and I've recently discovered why. The Japanese have a saying, "Fools learn from experience. The wise learn from history." But beyond immaturity of the people who use #YOLO as their pre-debauchary battle-cry, the very concept of "you only live once" bothered me, and up until now, it didn't make sense to me. I mean, it's technically true: we do only get one life. But that's not exactly what's being said here. Life is a noun. Live is a verb. And that difference turns out to be pretty important. Because looking at it that way, you discover that "you only live once" is NOT true. I'll explain why...I live every day. Every day that I am alive, I live. The only way for me to stop living would be to die. So saying "you only live once" isn't true. Once is a single event. But your life isn't a single event. It's a whole bunch of events, many of which we get multiple opportunities to in which to participate. It's "Once Upon A Time" to show that the story you're about to hear is unique. "And this one time, at band camp..." Saying "Once" is to pre-load the meaning that this is a "once in a lifetime" event, only that's rarely ever the case. Additionally, a snappy comeback to #YOLO is #YODO... You only die once, too! Only this never satisfied me as on point... there was something still missing, and I finally figured it out.
Ther real meme should be #YOGOL, or: You Only Get One Life. This properly conveys the importance of living your life the way you see fit, without doing risky behavior like cliff diving to prove a point! You only GET one life conveys the importance of preserving your life while living it for your sake. #YOGOL strips out all that stupid peer pressure of, "Why don't you want to? #YOlO!" and shoves it right back in their face. Just because you've never done something before doesn't mean you should try it! Most people have never experiences a gunshot wound either, and I don't see folks lining up for that once-in-a-lifetime experience!
So the next time you see someone throw down a #YOLO hashtag at you, tell 'em: "#YOGOL & no thank you." Most will try to defend themselves, but a few might actually get the point. There's a big difference in treating your life as a noun, an object that is replaceable, and a verb, an action you perform. By changing the verb to a noun, they've been able to take something that is not true and make it sound true. That's dangerous enough alone, before considering the dangers involved in the #YOLO act they're persuading you to do. It's like knowing a dangerous bridge is unsafe, but teling exeryone it's fine and if no one gets hurt in the process, why bother with the truth? Nothing bad happened, so they have no reason to be angry! Right?
Wrong. Saying #YOLO means you're putting the other person at risk for your own gains using a subtle distortion of the truth. If, by some miracle they don't get hurt, it's no thanks to #YOLO or you. It was pure luck, and luck can run out, so be careful. If they do get hurt, there will be hell to pay (and possible lawsuits), for not informaing the other party of the risks you knew. There are so many things not worth dying or getting injured over!! So let's get together and get folks to drop the whole #YOLO meme and start saying #YOGOL instead. It's time we put these hashtags in their place.
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