The Clock Is Ticking
Hey again, how's it going? Today I'm going to talk to you about death, which can be kind of a scary subject, or maybe something you don't want to think about. I believe you should think about it and I'm going to tell you why.
Luke Perry died just the other day, and he was 52 years old, apparently a few days ago. He suffered a massive stroke and then he was in the hospital, and he died in the hospital. Never recovered as far as I know. He never regained consciousness. And this is very close to me because in August of 2015 I had a stroke while I was driving an 18 wheeler at 70 miles an hour on the freeway, loaded. And Luckily for me, I was talking to Rockit at the time, and she knew something was wrong with me, but she wasn't sure what. Apparently while I was speaking to her, she couldn't understand what I was saying. And what I was trying to tell her was, my vision was weird, I couldn't point my eyes where I wanted them to go.
And then I went to reach for something on the dashboard and I'm like... nothing's happening. I looked down, and my arm's just still sitting on my lap. So I'm always a hard charger. I want to keep going. And I guess that's what... just autopilot, and I rolled up into the Wyoming port of entry. And I had all kinds of trouble trying to lock my door. I almost laid down cause I didn't feel very good and my brain's like, "No, you need to keep going."
So I made it into the thing, the port of entry, and I was walking all sideways, like I was drunk or something. And when I get in there they knew something's wrong and they called the highway patrol and he came out, and he's like, "Sorry I have to do this, but would you blow into this thing?" And I'm like, "Yeah, I get it."
Anyway, I'm trying to talk to him, and he puts me in his car to take me over to my truck. I'm trying to talk to him, and I'm looking all weird. And the ambulance, I heard him on the radio, he says, "Hey, where's my ambulance?" And I could tell he was scared cause he didn't know what was going on. He just knew something was really wrong with me.
And well, once again, luckily for me, I was only a hundred miles away from the best brain center in the western part of the United States. It's the Swiss Medical Center or something like that. When they had me in the hospital, before they put me on a helicopter, they're telling me they put this drug into me. I think it's called TSP, TSA, something like that. Anyway, it's a stroke drug, and they give it to you cause it's supposed to thin out your blood and make clots go away. I remember asking her what she wanted me to sign. And they wanted me to sign a thing so that they could put it in my IV and I'm like, "What is it? Do I need it?"
She goes, "Yeah, just sign it. Thank you. You really do need this." Okay. And I'm laughing to myself because I'm thinking they ain't never going to be able to read this anyway. Hell, I can't read it.
And so I signed the thing, and they put that stuff in, and I'm talking to some brain surgeon on the other end of an iPad on a stand, and she's asking me about these pictures I'm looking at.
I'm all, I think I know what she's talking about, but I have a very difficult time articulating what I'm looking at. So she tells them, "Yeah, bring him on down here." They threw me in a helicopter and I flew. And the, for me, the coolest thing about it was I had lost all emotion. I remember laying there thinking, flying through the air, "I hope I don't die." And then I thought, "Well I guess if I did, I wouldn't know it anyway."
I just realized I wouldn't mind it because I'm not scared. I just had no feeling emotionally. Anyway, I get down there and they checked me out and they had a whole group of people there because it was different types of doctors and interns, and they did an interview again, and threw me in an MRI, and then put me in a room. And the doctor came in and he said, "We think you had a stroke, but we're not sure because we didn't find anything in the initial MRI. And right now you're at a a one. On a scale of how likely it is that, that's what's happening and how bad a shape you're in." I was like, okay. And he went on to explain when you were on the of the video conference with the surgeon, she said you were at a nine. In other words, number nine of yes, you're having a stroke, and it could be bad.
And by the time I landed I was at a three and he says, "I'm standing here talking to you, and right now you're at one, and we're not totally sure what happened because you recovered so quickly. So we're going to keep you overnight and check you out, do some more tests and everything."
And it was so funny because they kept asking me what day it is and I'm like, "I never know what day it is. It's not a fair question." Then who's the president and all this. Anyway, I recovered miraculously, and... It's weird because everyone told me, even the interns when they were coming to check my temperature or whatever, they're like, "Oh are you the truck driver?" And then they would just sit down and they would say, "Well what happened? What was it like? What did you experience?" Cause they're all... they've never seen anyone just fix... get fixed.
And one guy told me, he said, "Shoot, they should hang your picture on the wall out there because you are the poster child for this drug and what it's supposed to do. It worked perfectly." Anyway, after that you start thinking about what you're doing and what you... what direction your life's headed and so on. And you can't escape it.
This is why I'm bringing this up. Because I don't care if you're 20 years old. Understand you're going to die. I think it was Marcus Aurelius (he was a Roman emperor) he had a guy whose whole job was just to follow him around and tell him, "You are mortal. You are just a man." Because all over he was worshipped by all these people, and he wanted to remember, "I am just a man, I will die. This is all temporary."
The reason this is a good thing is because you have a sense of urgency about your life and what you want to accomplish. So if there's something you're waiting for, and you think there's time, there might not be. And you'll never know. I thank God, for the people that day, that saved me, because I have had a vision of what life would have been like where half my body was useless, and I couldn't see what I, you know, tried to move my eyes with my head and... Now I'm good. But I don't know for how long.
And now I keep this in the back of my mind constantly. You never know what's going to happen, and it's very important. It gives you that sense of urgency for what you want to accomplish.
There's no day that you live unhappy. You're in a bad relationship? Get the hell out. You don't like your job? Do something else. It doesn't matter what it is about your life that you've got to change, but do it now, because then... It's the difference between living and waiting for something that is never going to happen because you didn't make it happen, or understanding that someday it's all going to go away, and you could have done this and you didn't.
There's a book I just read. It's called Can't Hurt Me. If I haven't mentioned it yet, you really should watch it or listen to it, read it. However you're going to absorb this information. At the end he starts talking about... Well shoot, I don't know if I should ruin it. Anyway, he talks about God, and his life, and what he thinks of it. And his picture is very close to mine. And he figured he'd die. And he's sitting there with God and he says...
Sorry. This is very close to me. Anyway, He says there's a chart there in front of him, and he's looking at it, it's pointed out to you. And you say, "What's that?" And God says, "This is, this is a picture of what your life should have been. And could have been. But you didn't... You can see at different points... You didn't take this opportunity. You didn't take this job. You didn't go with this person here. You didn't do this over here. And had you taken different steps, this is all what was supposed to be. And then you're there like, "Crap!I thought there would be more time." And then you realize... He doesn't even have to tell you. You realize, you knew there wasn't going to be time forever. And you still didn't do anything.
And after thinking about what I want to accomplish in my life, these different things I wanted to do, and time gone by that might've been wasted. You think how much you got left. It's time to get busy with whatever. I don't care what it is. Whether it's losing weight, or finishing your degree, or getting out of a relationship that's not serving you or anybody else. Maybe things you want to gain, maybe it's things you want to let go.
My message for today is, whatever it is, just do it. Because you don't get to work doing what you're doing so that someday you can do what you want to do. You must begin doing what you want to do and continue doing it and make that work.
That's the only way.
And then, as I talked about yesterday, it's a day by day thing. And even if you don't accomplish what you're after, you die in the fight. On the track. In the ring. Whatever.
So live your life like you got something to d and you named accomplish it, starting right now. Because you never know how long you got.
Hopefully this was not too depressing. But it should be an inspiration to you because it is to me. It is every day. And it's a much better way to live than just putting up with whatever it is that's a got you down.
So get out there and change it. Starting right now.
Want to change everything?
That's all I got for today. I will talk to you tomorrow. I'm out.
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