A Message to Everyone: Life is Short, Appreciate Everyone and Everything You Know and Love

Today, one of my bandmates was in a car accident, and he and his friend could have died. About a year and a half ago, someone in my class died in a plane crash. We weren’t super close, but we grew up together, so it really hurt when he and his mom passed. Today, my friend texted our band groupchat and said “I love all of you. I don’t wanna take life for granted anymore, I appreciate all of you.” I asked him what happened and he told me that he was driving with his friend and he hit a car straight on just because he didn’t see it coming. He could have killed himself and/or his friend. Me and my best friend were talking about this earlier, and we agreed that we wouldn’t know what to do with ourselves if he would have died. So many of us in the band would have been deeply affected by this loss, including our instructor who has taught my friend drums for years. Just thinking about how it would affect all of us really made me and my friend think about life. 

I’ve realized this before, but the feeling went away. Life is such a precious thing, and I have not been living it to the fullest. I’m sure a lot of other people don’t live their lives to the fullest either. We’re on this planet for such a short period of time, and with the little time that we have, we need to show love to the people we care about and live life the way we want to. Some people may believe that we go somewhere after this life, and others believe that this is the only life we have. We all need to take a step back and realize that we need to appreciate everything we have right now. Show love to the people you care about, don’t put energy into petty fights or small inconveniences, live in the moment. Never take anything or anyone for granted because we really have no idea how long we have on this earth. People don’t think about this as often as they should and everyone really ought to. Try new things, get new hobbies, make new friends, tell your friends you love them, hug people everytime you leave them. You have no clue what can happen in a matter of seconds. Before you know it, you could lose someone you know and love, so appreciate everything while you have it right now.