“One day your life will flash before your eyes, make sure it’s worth watching.” -Gerard Way.

Have you ever thought about what will happen to you after you’re dead?  What about all the important relics from crucial times in history?  Surely the human race won’t be around forever, and what will happen to the things left behind when we cease to exist?  These are thoughts that race through my mind everyday.  I didn’t always think like that though, I used to have normal thoughts.

The thoughts that used to cross my mind were just mundane, everyday things like “what’s for dinner?” or “I wonder what the weather will be like tomorrow?”  When I was younger I used to try to focus on the fact that one day I wouldn’t be alive, that I wouldn’t have a bedroom, clothes, or television to watch.  It would give me a strange feeling, almost like an out-of-body type experience.  I only did this when it was dark and everyone was asleep, and I couldn’t fall asleep.  I didn’t realize what I was thinking about until one or two years ago, when I was struck with the realization that everyone and everything will come to an end. I guess I’ve been thinking like that for a little while, I just didn’t know until I heard someone else explain it.

When I discovered what was going on in my mind, I didn’t expect it to be from a strange guy on YouTube.  It was a normal day and I had nothing to do, so I decided to watch one of my favorite YouTubers, Danisnotonfire.  I wasn’t paying too much attention to the video until Dan said something like “Do you ever think about the fact that one day you and everyone you love will die?”  I thought it was extremely weird and just a really dark thought to have, but then I remembered what I used to think about when I couldn’t sleep.  I paid closer attention and suddenly understood everything he said.

Danisnotonfire usually has videos that are about things that happened to him that he thinks viewers would find funny or entertaining.  He has a few videos of his opinions on life and what will happen after, but he mainly tries to forget about what he’s thinking.  His flatmate Phil, who also has a YouTube channel called AmazingPhil, has an opposite outlook on life.  He tries to help Dan into a happier mindset whenever he starts to think too much, but it doesn’t usually fix the situation.
I concluded that what I was thinking about was the inevitability of death and the destruction of Earth, and what would happen to my family and myself after we died.  This is called an Existential Crisis.  When I realized what this was I thought it might ease my concerns, but if anything it just made them worse.  Hearing someone else confirm your fears is terrifying and there’s really nothing you can do to make it go away.  Along with recognizing that I was having an existential crisis, I learned that I live in countdown mode.
Countdown mode is when you’re not “living in the moment,” and you’re just waiting for something that you’ve bookmarked in your mind as something to look forward to.  For example, when I’m in school I can sit in classes and pay attention, then do my homework when I get home, but it’s just an everyday occurrence that doesn’t seem to make a significant difference to anything.  The days where I feel as if I’m enjoying them are ones where I know I’ll be doing something exciting, like going to an event like a concert or going to an amusement park with friends.  Holidays aren’t even that exciting, just another day with some extra activities.
While living in countdown mode and in an existential crisis, I tend to be pessimistic.  I can’t help but imagine what will happen to people when they die, or what might become of the remnants of humankind after we’re gone.  Everything that people find so important will just be pieces of paper or random artifacts lying around in abandoned places.  Even as I’m writing this essay I know that it will soon be forgotten, just like everyone and everything.  Fearing something inevitable is terrible because there isn’t anything that can subdue the fear.  You can try to ignore it and repress the thoughts, but they never go away.

If you take a moment to think about it, what impact do we really have on the universe? All in all we’re just a spec in one galaxy in a forever growing nothingness that we call our universe.  Eventually the Earth itself will cease to exist, our entire galaxy could implode on itself and everything that astronomers have spent lifetimes studying won’t be here.  There is no denying that The End is inevitable, and that’s the scary part. 

People say that ignorance is bliss. You aren’t focusing on anything bad, you don’t even know about it.  Not knowing about something means you wouldn’t be thinking about it, and it wouldn’t have the potential to scare you, until you meet it face-to-face.  Not being afraid of things out of your control would mean that you can enjoy every day and not worry that you won’t be alive some day, not worrying that everything we know and love will disappear.  In the end, there’s no way around it, and you won’t survive it, so why take everything so seriously?

Too many people are extremely worried about unnecessary things in life.  It’s okay to miss a day or two of work or school if you aren’t feeling up to it.  You don’t need to wait until Friday to do something, just do it when you get released from work and don’t worry about it.  If you want to eat an entire box of cookies or bag of chips, don’t let other people talk you out of it.  People need to realize that they have control over their own lives, they don’t need to live up to other people’s standards or listen to people when they tell someone they can’t do something. If you wait until you “have the time” to do something, you probably won’t get to it. 
When you get older and you’re retired, you’ll want amazing stories to tell your kids and grandkids, or your best friends. If you don’t do what you want to do you’ll look back on yourself and regret not doing anything. You’ll realize that you didn’t have to wait until the weekend to go see that new movie, that you never got around to seeing. You’ll remember how you wanted to buy that awesome jacket in college, but you insisted to yourself that you should save that money for something more important. While you look back at all the things you missed, you’ll also see all the amazing chances you took and how well they worked out, how fun they were to take.  You can do whatever you want.

I try to keep this in my mind whenever I start to think about oblivion, but it doesn’t help a lot.  I know that everything I’ve said is true, and I know that I believe it, but I’m too scared to live like that.  I’m scared of the consequences that will occur if I miss a day of school. I’ll miss too much work and I’ll get in trouble from my parents or teachers.  I keep telling myself that the only thing holding me back is me, but I think that what’s holding me back is the fear of what my parents would take away from me if I did what I wanted to do.  If I did what I wanted to do my parents would freak out. They tell me that I’m not allowed to get any piercings, any tattoos, or dye my hair with dye that lasts more than a few days.  I tell myself “when I’m older I’ll get it done” but I don’t want to wait until I’m older. I’ve already dyed my hair and gotten in trouble for it, but that didn’t stop me from doing it again.

The problem with this though is that to get piercings you need to be an adult or have permission from a parent or guardian. The reason I’m not allowed to do anything is because my parents don’t like how it looks. Is it their hair? Is it their face or ear? Is it their body that would be getting things like this done? It’s my life so I should be able to decide what I want right? But the fear of consequence that holds me back unfortunately is greater than the desire for things that I want.