Y-O-L-O

It has become one of the most viral sayings of all time, “YOLO”: You only live once. When you decide whether or not to go out, you (or your peer-pressuring friends) apply YOLO. Before you do something completely unconventional and out of your comfort zone, you say YOLO, too. Unfortunately, the vast majority of individuals who practice YOLO do not actually stay true to this motto. As college students, we have expectations for ourselves. But our families, our loved ones and our friends also have their own expectations.

James is a Pratt junior majoring in biomedical engineering. When he came to Duke, his parents explicitly told him that he must graduate with an engineering degree. Furthermore, he was told that he could not marry outside of his race. He had to maintain family tradition and marry within his race.

Over the course of James’ career, he has realized that, despite being thousands of miles away from his family home, he has family expectations that he has to fulfill. James, however, has very little desire to study engineering. James even goes to Shooters, and, after a wild night out, he realizes that he is beginning to develop feelings for a girl his parents wouldn’t consider an appropriate mate. What’s more, after taking classes in the humanities, he eventually figured that his true interests lie in cultural anthropology and photography.

After gathering the courage to tell his family about this drastic change, his parents are ashamed of him. His father tells him that he doesn’t want his son to graduate with a useless degree. Furthermore, James’ parents have already planned an arranged marriage for him. Upon finishing Duke, James’ parents tell him that he will work for an engineering company in the Bay area. Not knowing what to do, James looks for that middle road where he can satisfy himself and not become an utter failure in the eyes of his family.

At Duke, there are many individuals who literally have their lives planned out. Young men and women who have been programmed to do as instructed. Even before freshmen arrive on campus, some prospective students have a timeline of when they will get married, when they will receive their doctorate degree and when they will retire. It’s great having things all planned out. No matter how perfect things may seem, however, life tends to throw us for a loop.

We all have one life to live (unless you’re Jesus, who can rise from the dead). As we are in a socially, academically and intellectually demanding culture, we tend to forget that. Instead, we focus on the fact that we have to live up to everyone else’s expectations of us. Sometimes, we are even scared to go against the will of those we have known for a very long time, those individuals we have our fondest memories with, all because we are too scared to hurt or disappoint our loved ones. However, we are actually detracting from our own happiness.

Instead of following true individual passions, we are following the money. It’s all about who can make six figures, who can splurge on the best outfits and designer shoes and who can buy the most luxurious property.

We can all agree with the fact that sometimes what we think will make us happy eventually makes us sad. We often forget about the fact that we are individual entities. It takes us a long time to realize, but we could have avoided all this drama and pain in the first place.