Paper Towns is filled with many amazing quotations and is written so beautifully that there are a countless amount of phrases which appeal to me. There is one particular quote, however, that astounds me with it's accuracy:
“Did you know that for pretty much the entire history of the human species, the average life span was less than thirty years? You could count on ten years or so of real adulthood, right? There was no planning for retirement, There was no planning for a career. There was no planning. No time for planning. No time for a future. But then the life spans started getting longer, and people started having more and more future. And now life has become the future. Every moment of your life is lived for the future--you go to high school so you can go to college so you can get a good job so you can get a nice house so you can afford to send your kids to college so they can get a good job so they can get a nice house so they can afford to send their kids to college.”
― John Green, Paper Towns (page 33)
If you think about it, that is really all us humans do. We plan for the future. When I look at myself right now, I am in high school sitting here writing a detailed reflection on my book so that I can achieve good grades and get into a good university. I want to get a good education so I can have a good job and a good life and be happy when i'm older. Even as I sit here I am thinking about the future. So many of us live our lives planning for the future and thinking about what is to come, that we forget to live life in the moment. All we worry about is the future; we consider the future consequences before doing an action. Since we were little children, people around you make predictions about your future and ask what you want to be when you grow up. I agree with John Green when his character Margo says "every moment of your life is lived for the future." I think we all need a reminder to slow down, and enjoy life as it comes. All of society needs to stop living life preparing for the future, we should savor our present moments and not stress about destiny.
