You’re taking this YOLO thing very seriously Mum.
So says my lad Billy, aged 26.
OK so YOLO stands for YOU ONLY LIVE ONCE.
I used to think it was the ultimate in naff-ness. On a par with those 4×4 jeeps with ‘One life Live It’ stickers on the back. Just about ok if you are surfing in Newquay, less so shopping in Surbiton.
Anyway. YOLO. It’s a fact. You DO Only Live Once.
So how come we pretend we don’t?
My friend asked a question at a dinner party. What if you only had a year to live?
The usual responses – give up the job and travel, more holidays, do a community job.
Why should it make any difference how long we have? We should at least be doing a lot of the stuff we love anyway.
Hitting 50 hammered YOLO home to me. I’d taken a month off work to cycle round New Zealand, cycling up to 60 miles a day between hostels. I’d never felt so alive.
I couldn’t settle back into the office. I’d done 30 years in the public sector, made it to the top team, but the passion had gone.
So I left, went freelance and choose to work a lot less and cycle a lot more.
I downsized to a flat with my new partner Mike. Bought a campervan. Literally started to live my dream – biking and hiking – and some writing.
Then a HUGG – we all need hugs – a HUGG is a Huge Unbelievably Great Goal.
To bike and hike the coast of Britain, all 5000 miles of it, with Mike and the camper.
And that’s why my lad said I was taking YOLO very seriously.
Because seriously – we don’t know how long we have, what’s round the corner, how many years of healthy life we have left.
Because all the money in the world can’t buy health, it can’t buy time.
I’m most alive when on my bike.
Fun Fit and Free. That’s me.
So what’s your YOLO?