Warning: this post contains a discussion on death, as a friend of mine passed away today. It is intensely personal. However, I’ve decided that my blog is a platform for me to reflect on deeply personal matters, such as mental health, my career and my closest relationships. So please keep this in mind

It feels like a lot of what we do is done for the future. We write high school exams to get into universities. We get degrees to get better jobs. We save money to have more down the line. We forgo much of our time in favour of a future time, but when we get there we repeat the cycle.

It’s difficult to live in the present. I know I’m doing it with my Masters at the moment. I worked so hard to get into it and now I’m trying my best to get it over as quickly as possible.

This evening I found out a friend of mine, Nikita, passed away suddenly. She had just left university, she had just started her first job, she was 24. She was one of the most caring, kind people I’ve ever interacted with.

I don’t quite know how to process it. It feels like she had only just begun in the world. I went back to our whatsapp conversation. We last spoke when she was helping one of my students figure out a way of getting into banking.

I looked at her whatsapp status and it reads “La joie de vivre“. Seeing this gave me the most contradicting feelings… joyful at how beautiful it was, angry at it’s sheer dark irony.

The only thing I can really take away from this is a frightening look at mortality. That my friends, family and I won’t be around forever, and we have absolutely no idea when our time will come.

I have no control over how long any of us will be around. But I do have control over how I spend my time. And I will work towards my future. But I will try to more actively live in today.

Rest in peace Nikita, we will miss you.