We are all born and we really do not get much of a say in it. We live and die, we come and go, and in the end it doesn’t even matter. Nihilism is so simple to fall into once you realize how big everything is and how much is going on. Four people are born every second, and two people die. We live on a speck of rock in space with a virtually infinite number of planets, solar systems and galaxies on every side of us, yet we float around a single star and somehow we thrive. And while the Earth seems to last forever, our lives do not. The current average  human lifespan is approximately 78 years. I am seventeen years old, not even out of high school, and yet I might have spent a fourth of my life doing who-knows-what in who-cares-where. Is that just how life goes? We end up wasting huge parts of life trying to find success, but we actually miss out on the good parts of yesterday and yesteryear.

Of course, maybe I’m wrong. I am only seventeen.

Sometimes I sit down and have an existential crisis. It is not on purpose, of course – who would do that to themselves? It happens randomly and without warning, whether I am lying in bed, reading a book or watching the news. All of these people in entertainment and media making something out of their lives — slaying a dragon or becoming the President of the USA– and here I am, sitting on my bed, writing an article for a school newspaper that most of the school will never know about. Not that I am complaining; I thrive on anonymity.

What is the point? That is what I am trying to figure out myself, honestly. This feeling of ignorance is by no mean uncommon, and many adolescents struggle with these ideas when they start to reach adulthood, when they are no longer bound by their parents.

But here is what I have gathered about living:

We have a limited amount of time and we could literally keel over at any given second, so what can we do? Nothing! That is why we need to live every second in the moment. We can stress all we want about the reaction, or we could actually go out and do something that might get the reaction. We get nowhere when we worry about what that reaction might be– that is a problem for tomorrow to deal with. And once that reaction has come, do not fret about it the next day either. That was yesterday’s problem, today is a whole new hell. But of course, not everything should be like that. To directly debate myself, as much as I hate it, there are a few things we need to set our focus to if we want to live fulfilling lives. Relationships, careers, friend groups – these all require months and years of thought. While anxiety and depression can be relieved while living on the daily, it would be unhealthy to forget about the long run. Priorities must be set. If you need to work briskly and inefficiently to get the job done, so be it. It will save you a good bit of stress today. However, don’t hit your friend today and expect to be forgiven tomorrow.

Sure, we do not matter – none of this matters! But why should we be burdened by the way the world is. Live your life and enjoy it, because that’s all we can do. If you are not happy with the way you are then change it. Follow your God, Gods or maybe just your own set of morals. So long as you are happy with the way things are going, that really is all that matters. Do not be sucked into despair. Embrace it, and use it to mold yourself.