The YOLO Mentality: Why It Isn’t Good For Relationships

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…