Death In Its Many Forms

Death In Its Many Forms

Howdy gang - a bit of a downer...and paradoxically an upper topic on this round.  I'd read an article recently about the importance of estate planning for the unfortunate reality of untimely death, especially if you're a parent.  Having come from a career in and around crisis management, the fact that life is fragile and sometimes shorter than we'd otherwise like it to be is a sad fact.  As you can guess, between FIRE for Adventure and Plan Fam, we've got a take on estate planning and its importance...but not today.  

Stop and smell the flowers (and pick a
few for your loved ones) before you 
become one...

Today, we'd like to discuss the forms of death that are out there in our midst.  There's obviously the very real, clinical/physical death where your heart stops beating and we return you, dust to dust and ashes to ashes back to the earth (on an aside, here's a fun way to think about a tough topic from a cowboy's perspective).  Anyhow, I think most of us can get our heads around that sort of death, as it is the reality for each of us at some point in the future, right along with taxes.  There's an old saying about how "everyone dies, not everyone lives" and in that vein, I'd argue that you can die in other ways...spiritually, mentally, through marriage, your general well-being, etc.  

It has been said that "you're either growing or decaying" and for some of us, we slip in our growth and without some course correction, much like the proverbial frog in boiling water, we continue to decline until that part of us is dead.  Take, for example, a friend who I'd recently been chatting with about his walk in faith and spirituality.  What started as a busier schedule after a job shift and a new baby became an excuse to invest Sunday mornings outside of his church (that he historically attended faithfully).  Soon enough, that short season became more habitual, and before long what had started as temporary took on an air of more permanence.  This is far from saying or equating faithfulness/spiritual/etc with "having to worship in a church" - I for one, feel much closer to God out in nature than I do in the four walls with my several hundred closest friends.  The point here is, that the slippery slope of losing his routine, over time led him further and further away from who he was, who he'd said he wanted to be, and how he desired to lead their family.  By the time we chatted, this once spiritually alive, even on-fire friend, admitted that his faith was at best on life support.  

Don't let the "doing" of whatever passion
you have slip away.

In another case, a person close to me, over the years slipped from being an avid outdoorsman, adventurer, and hunter/fisherman.  Somewhere along the way, the convergence of convenience/comfort (big screen TV, Lazy-Boy chair, etc) intersected with the natural state of being a little stiffer and sorer as we all get older.  Slowly, he became the guy who watched fishing shows on television instead of the guy who went fishing.  What started out as a subconscious few steps again took on the habitual ruts until in a few short years he, no longer could go fishing.  He'd lost the physical ability to get out the door...his overall well-being and physical fitness/health declined so much that while he was still breathing, he'd suffered a sort of physical death.  

We all have those cold winter
days in life, sometimes we just
need a spark to get back in
the saddle and keep moving 
down the trail.  

It is a sad, heartbreaking, and tragic state when we lose more first responders each year to suicide (or
otherwise deaths of despair) each year than "on the job."  I've unfortunately had a few people close to me who chose that as a way to end it all.  In hindsight, the "fire in the belly" sort of life had slipped far before they took matters into their own hands.  In other words, they were, in many ways, gone before they were gone.  Mentally, before their passing, they'd lost the spark for life and the deed was just a punctuation on an otherwise already checked-out life.  They'd mentally given up somewhere along the way as the weight of the world became too much and they'd "seen too much" to continue the journey.  

In our last example, all of us, unfortunately, have seen people in our circles whose marriages began to dissolve until they ultimately died - either resulting in divorce or a quiet life as a roommate under the same roof.  Chances are, the marriage didn't just have a "heart attack" one day and pass suddenly but rather, likely followed a slow and steady dying where the couple had grown apart until one day they realized the once "us" had died somewhere along the way and they called the "roommate game" quits with an official divorce decree.  

Some cuts are more
productive than 
others. 

With each of those examples and others, they were largely deaths of a thousand cuts, they took time to set in, not just overnight.  In part, all of us slide back and forth on the healthy-as-a-horse to barely-breathing continuum across all of the facets of our lives over time.  The good news is that we can put in checks (systems, or partners) to help us evaluate our various selves over time and course correct.  I'm far from telling you that any of those "deaths" are wholly preventable if you just have a positive attitude.  That's a Pollyanna platitude that's overly simplified and likely out of touch with reality.  

That said, for me, for many of us, those voices in our heads speak the language of excuses.  The secret, I've found, is to have some sort of system or trigger points in place that alert us when we start down the paths we fear.  We talk more about the idea of trigger points and management action points in other posts.  The point is, proactively, we can set up some systems that help alert us when we're starting into failing health in a particular area.  The old terms "brothers-keeper" or the more modern "best man" concept at a wedding is more than a party-toasting-bro, but someone who will tell you what you need to hear along the way, not what you want to hear.  Sometimes, maybe oftentimes, those around us notice when we're "off" far better than we do ourselves and can help alert us for some course correction.  We need to seek out those in our circle (and commit to being that person for those around us) and empower them to tell us what we need to hear...before it's too late. 

With you in the arena, from ours to yours...Happy Trails!

Call to Action: 

• Pick an area of your life where you've noticed that "slippage" is occurring.  Write down three actions you're going to do in the next month to slow or reverse the course (e.g. if you notice you're packing on the pounds, the three could be that you'll do monthly weigh-ins and chart the results, do proactive meal planning, and start parking at the back of the parking lot to get some steps).  
• 1 - ___________________ 
• 2 - ___________________
• 3 - ___________________
• Sit down with your spouse (and perhaps kids in another session) and have a meaningful, intentional conversation about any places where you're dying or have died.  Make a commitment to mitigate (and hopefully reverse) the damage done.  
• Discussion: Consider what you/your family could/would/should (level of commitment) and start/stop/sustain (action) in regards to turning the ship around before it's too late in the key parts of your life.  

Further Reading, Motivation, and References:

- Ten Stages of a Dying Marriage - patterns are predictive and predictable is preventable.