HEART AND MUSIC. Journal of a Lost Boy. Version 3. http://hyperren.blogspot.com/

Before he left for Brunei, our HSM choreographer, Dan Cabrera, told us to live each day as if it were our last. It was one way to guarantee that we would be happy with our lives, because we'd keep going for whatever it is we want to. It's possible to do everything we want to do; it's just that normally, something holds us back.

The other day, the same theme popped up in a conversation. "Carpe diem" was the famous quote from Dead Poets Society. Seize the day. It's basically diving head first into whatever life throws at us. It's embracing the situation no matter how dire.

Later that night, I found out (and saw) that one of my closest friends got into a car accident. He's fine, thank God, but it still illustrates one important fact about life: It ends, and more often than not, you don't know when.

My favorite lyric from the Rent musical - and one which continues to be my motto - is "Forget regret, or life is yours to miss." I will admit that I have made many mistakes in life. There are a lot of things I wish I didn't do, and things I probably shouldn't have done. But I don't regret any of the decisions I've made. Not because I'm a heartless bastard. I don't regret them because I know they've shaped the person I am today. If it weren't for those missteps, I wouldn't have learned my lessons.

Live like you were dying.
Carpe diem.
Seize the day.
Forget regret, or life is yours to miss.

But there's one big thing that stops people (including myself, admittedly) from leading such a life: FEAR. There's fear of the consequences of your actions. There's fear of the action itself. There's fear of the reactions of the people involved. There's fear of failure. There's fear of rejection. There's fear of getting hurt.

I've been hurt before. A lot. Heaven knows I've done and said a lot of things that have ended with me feeling like I've hit rock-bottom, or feeling like I'm worthless. And perhaps in the moment, it's the end of the world for me. But one year later, you think about that exact same moment, and things don't seem so bad. And you may not have realized it then, but you've learned a very important lesson about yourself and about life in general.

Aside from fear, there's another thing that seems to cripple people (or at least it cripples me) and prevents them from living life to its fullest: HELPLESSNESS. It runs both ways. Sometimes, one feels helpless when faced with a certain situation, that current events can only lead to defeat, and that there's no way to stop it. And sometimes, one feels helpless when you see someone else hurting, and you know you want to help, but you don't know how to do it. It's like watching, well, a car accident, and not being able to stop it or make it better.

I've been thinking about how helpless I feel sometimes. And the easy way out sometimes is to go the emo route, to let things happen and to embrace the depression that follows. It's very defeatist, and it's something I'm good at. I've always been the person who carries the burden by himself, then grumbling about it after. But I realize now one simple solution for helplessness: Ask for help. It seems easy, but it's not. Asking for help obviously tells the world that you need help, and in this world where personal responsibility and industry are valued over cooperation, asking for help makes you look weak. But we need help sometimes. Man is a social being, and we do need the presence, company, and help of other people to survive. The danger, of course, is dependency on the other person, and while I don't have the solution to that, my theory is that cooperating with other people helps us learn how to handle things when the situation comes up again, so that eventually, we can tackle certain things on our own.

I guess I've rambled on long enough about this topic. I guess there's just one way for me to wrap this up.

Live like you were dying.
Carpe diem.
Seize the day.
Forget regret, or life is yours to miss.
...but I need your help. And I'm asking for your help now.
And I'll help you as well.

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