I hope this doesn't sound pretentious,or irritating,or disrespectful.

                           This is not going to be upsetting or morbid, i'm not talking about this in the conventional way. This is rarely talked about in depth, but it's presence is always there. I'm not trying to tackle this at 17, and I probably wont be trying to tackle it 50 years from now. It's not one of those things that you just "understand". I'm not writing this to be trite, or say a bunch of cliche's, or tell you that "life doesn't go on forever". You've heard it all already. You started to absorb it when you went to your first wake as a toddler or elementary schooler, and it really hit you when someone you held very close to your heart was gone.
                           I feel like a lot people have this problem that they keep putting off "living". We start in High School, where we absorb ourselves with things we don't necessarily "like", but have to do. It becomes routine, it becomes normal. It doesn't always feel good for ourselves, but we keep doing it because our obligations and expectations tell us to.
                           I don't want it to be like this for the rest of my life. I don't want any of you to do this for the rest of your life. I learned earlier than a lot of people do, that I can't keep putting off happiness. Because who am I helping by doing it? Definitely not myself. Society tells us that we have to keep trudging on and keep fighting, and just "get through it", but what am I getting through? Life? I feel like my brain is trained to want to do this, I just feel it in my core. It's expecting to go through a whole lot of trudging and fighting just to become content, it doesn't even expect happiness in the equation.
                          I can't let it be like this for the rest of my life. You can't let it be like this for the rest of your life. I'm not saying that life is a cake-walk, and that you're supposed to be some selfish, irresponsible bastard; but you can't torture yourself for the rest of your life. Get through your difficult times, and learn absolutely everything you can from them, but then you need to do what makes you feel good. It's that simple. This is your life only. You are allowed to do what you want with it. You can do things for other people, you can be a selfless for other people; but you can't live for other people. I'm not saying it in the way that a person can't be your reason to live. I'm saying it in the way that you can't live through someone else, or solely to make someone else happy. You were not put on this planet to service someone else's fulfillment for your entire life.
            If I was given the chance to hammer into every young adults head that you need to do what makes you happy now, and that you can't keep putting it off until "later", I would. Because it's something people need to understand now, and not "later".