Life Is Short, So I Try Even Harder

This is a touchy topic that hits a lot of us on a deep level. While I always write about my own life, what I’m doing or trying to achieve, that doesn’t mean I’m always focused on myself. Obviously, I have to focus on myself and my life when I’m trying to do all these big things that require a lot of work, but when I see other struggle, it always affects me. When I see others struggle, go through hard times, or take things to the point of no return including suicide, I can’t sit here and pretend that I’ve never thought about it myself.

There’s a reason I work as hard as I do and have such big dreams. There’s a reason I try to accomplish my biggest goals as soon as I can. There’s a reason I hate wasting a single minute not working towards my aspirations. That reason being life’s unexpected nature and unknown length. I’m not here to talk about the meaning of life or what our purpose on this planet is. I’m talking about what life throws at you, or how things can change on a dime, and you can be completely convinced that there is nothing else to look forward to. I’ve seen a lot of death the last several years including family members, friends, acquaintances, and strangers. The causes ranging from sickness, to overdoses, car crashes and suicide. It’s not only devastating when you lose someone, but terrifying. Terrifying because if that person is your age or younger, you realize that you really never know when your last day is. I know that’s dark, but isn’t it true?

I’m not saying I wake up every day saying, “this could be my last day so how will I spend it”, but I do often carry the mindset that life is unexpected, and I don’t want to go out on bad terms or go out wishing I had done something else or tried a little bit harder. All my friends and family would say that I’m a fighter. I fight for what I want. When I plant a seed in my mind about a goal or something I want, I stop at nothing to make it happen. The mindset I’ve had for many years now about life’s uncertainty is why I’ve worked as hard as I have and managed to achieve the huge things that I have in such a short amount of time. When I think about it, witnessing deaths of those close to me changed me in a lot of ways. It lit a fire under my butt because I want a lot of things in life. I want to look back at my life later on and be proud of it and say that I did everything I could imagine. I want to be able to have crossed off all my bucket list achievements. I don’t want my final days, whenever they may be, to arrive and cause me to feel a sort of failure or grief for not doing more or trying to cross off another thing from my list. Between our own conditions within or outside of our control in life, and the current growing tensions and attacks in the world, especially regarding those of us in the LGBT community, life is perhaps more precious than ever. It’s a gift that I intend to cherish and get the most out of.

Now more than ever, it’s important to be yourself and not feel ashamed about it. It’s important to try and at least make a few steps towards your dreams, even if you don’t know where to start. I am fully aware that it’s way easier to say than to do that. I’ve had anxiety and depression issues for years, and a while ago they were so bad that I literally had no idea what I was going to do with my life because I was scared and full of doubt. Between the cultural issues the past few years and the losses I’ve witnessed in my family or circles of friends, I’ve realized that no one is going to live your life for you. No one is going to get you to make things happen. You have to do them yourself. You have to make a choice. You can choose to be sad, doubtful, etc., or you can choose to put in effort and make something out of your life. Some of us have harder times than others doing that, and over time it can be detrimental and have irreversible effects on our lives and the people in our lives. We all have our own reasonings and justifications for what we do or how we think. Not everyone understands where we come from or why we do what we do. For a lot of us, our own approval is all that matters. Not everyone wants help. Not everyone wants to speak up. Sometimes saying “it will be ok” doesn’t work, and that’s a tough pill to swallow. This is a rough topic where so much can be said, disagreements will be had, and opinions will be strong.

Nowadays it’s hard to talk about anything because there’s the possibility of being attacked online. I’ve become more and more disgusted at how mean people are to one another on social media. I understand when someone has done something truly wrong and deserves to be told so, but when a simple disagreement turns into murdering each other with words while we hind behind our phones and computers is the norm, and it makes social media a different place than it used to be. It used to be fun. I still can’t bring myself to go leave hateful comments on someone’s content, especially when the hate only comes from a place of disagreement, not logic or truth. A lot of this rhetoric has been shown to us and taught to us from political figures, and we’ve done the rest to escalate it to the point of people wanting to end their lives. We live in a world where wanting to be heard has become forcing our opinions and beliefs on the community as a whole, and when someone resists, that’s all we need to attack. Clearly, that achieves nothing.

In the end, I just want happiness, and I’m lucky to have it now. I see so many going through rough times, and it hurts me to see. I want to help any way I can, even when there is no way for me to do so. I remind myself how lucky I am to have what I have. I’m grateful to have the opportunities that I do, because I realize how difficult it is to get past the hurdles in life, even the ones you think you can’t get past. It’s more difficult than ever to ignore whatever hate is spewed at you. I will always remind myself that life is short and unexpected, and because of that, I will do anything I can to achieve the things I want.