The YOLO Mentality: Why It Isn’t Good For Relationships
By: Sara Knick
Tags: Goals, Yolo, Relationships, Relationships Love Dating, Love

Back some years ago, I kept seeing the phrase “YOLO.” It means “You Only Live Once.” It became a very popular acronym to use at one point in time. On Instagram, #yolo is linked to 31.1 million posts. The idea was that you would do things in the moment to feel good because why not?! You only live once!

People want to feel good in the moment, but when we aren’t considering our long term goals, the long term consequences or what even may happen from the results of our actions, we introduce instability and recklessness into the mix. What may happen from something that we want to experience in the now may leave us with consequences that can resonate into the future. If we introduce recklessness into our behavior because of this idea that we only live once and we are running out of time, we may be leading ourselves further from our ultimate path in love and will feel worse most of the time in exchange for moments of time that we feel good.

If we are doing things in love that we haven’t fully considered or aren’t in alignment with, we will feel worse in the end. If we haven’t considered the type of partner that we choose to have fun with and he or she isn’t in alignment with what we want long term, we will not feel good. We may get a high or moments of extreme ecstasy in a feeling of conquering the world in being overzealous in the pursuit of love, but if we haven’t thought things through, we could be taking steps back for ourselves instead of steps forward.

This idea that you only live once is something that I do not believe in. I believe in the idea of past lives and reincarnation. I believe in being the best version of yourself that you can be. This will attract the best people and circumstances to surround you.

If you tend to be impulsive, you may be attracted to the YOLO life. You may want to do extreme things for gratification whether it be exploring many sexual partners or using substances to get you high. It may feel safer to think the YOLO way and you may feel empowered to do what you want until you die, but the fact is that with every action, there is a result. If you want a long term relationship or want to reach long term love goals, you have to think and act in the here and now to reach those long term love goals.

Acting out of your emotions even if it feels good in the moment without considering the results or consequences of your actions will ultimately lead to ups and downs that could manifest itself in a wavering feeling of self empowerment and diminishing self confidence.

Relationships are built on trust, loyalty and honesty. Great relationships start with being the type of person that you would want to be in a relationship with. Making decisions that compromise our well being is not in alignment with being the best versions of ourselves. Short term gratification may not equal the long term gratification that we desire. You need to use logic and emotion together to move forward confidently into the future.

We may have acted out of a need for gratification when we were younger and made mistakes that we have learned from. If we continue to only think in the short term, we will only have short term gratification that can impact the results we will get in the long term. Whatever decisions and choices we make in the here and now will resonate long term. Having a YOLO mentality implies that we don’t live again and that we need to seek out gratification of ourselves so that we can be happy. We are all universally connected and do impact each other with our decisions and actions. In our relationships, we want to consider the feelings of others and consequences of our actions that may resound into the future.