RIP Matthew Perry; Celebrating folks while they're still alive would be better

The show Friends came out my freshman year of high school.

Girls on the Route 66 SEPTA bus would talk about how great it was on the way to school Friday mornings. It was on Thursday nights.

I finally watched it around November that year. The Thanksgiving episode where they were playing football in the backyard I think? And I thought it wasn't great at all. Kinda dumb.

I'd still watch it from time to time though because we only had 1 TV and my sisters liked it.

As I got older I heard people say it was a crappy white people show with awful characters. Honestly I couldn't agree more. I will admit though, occasionally I could laugh at it. It had its moments I guess.

I knew Matthew Perry was in and out of rehab in his life and struggled.

What I didn't know is that he started Perry's House in Malibu, a rehab center. It's all over my social media feeds today. That is great that he did something like that, and had many heartfelt things to say about passing judgement on people.

Instead of celebrating accomplishments or sentiments like this only after a public figure dies, can we start normalizing celebrating them while they're still alive?

Maybe we should look to see if the celebrities and public figures we idolize are doing anything nice for humanity outside of their star status and focus on that. Or even if they're not, just admire them now with the same passion we do after they're gone. I know some people do that already. I'm not saying I haven't shown more compassion for dead figures myself (eh-hem, see my Bowie cosplays).

The same way we admire celebrities both dead and alive, we should also be paying attention to our friends, family, colleagues and communities and admire and respect one another for their contributions to society and just being themselves and existing.

Life is hard. We could use some positivity.

I don't know, I just thought about it, and in the last few years I've been really thinking about mortality, how life is so short.

Matthew Perry didn't mean a whole lot to me personally and I'm not going to pretend he did just because he's gone now. I do think it's important to celebrate all people while they're still here. Whether that be celebrities, public figures, even friends, family members.

You really never know when your time is up.