The 17 Worst Ways To Avoid Dying

Confession: Sometimes I use this joint as my own form of therapy. Can’t say it is better or more effective than seeing a shrink but it costs a lot less and there is no time lost in traffic or waiting rooms.

Consider that fair warning that this post might not be what you expect so now is the time to commit to going the distance or pointing and clicking your way to safety.

If you take that first step into the wild and walk with me you have my solemn pledge to do my best to protect you as best as I can, but remember as Tolkien wrote in The Hobbit:

“There are no safe paths in this part of the world. Remember you are over the Edge of the Wild now, and in for all sorts of fun wherever you go.”

I made the decision long ago to do as I do and to go as I go, often choosing the road less taken as the best path to find my way knowing it would often be harder and lonelier.

It wasn’t always because I wanted to be different or to rebel but because it was the only way I knew how to live and the only path I could see.

Consider that a long-winded way of saying hindsight is 20-20 and there are moments where the biggest impediment to my success is/was me.

But they are bookended by the long list of successful ventures that would not have come about had I chosen to play it safe or to be conservative in my choices.

Is it obnoxious to turn one of your quotes into a graphic element and hope that people will use it and that their use will lead to more traffic/readers which in turn will generate more opportunity for you?

Doesn’t really matter if your answer is yes because I did it for the reasons I illustrated above and because I know that if you don’t ask, you often don’t get.

I think about this on a personal and professional level as both a person, writer and a father.

That is because experience has taught me that sometimes we have to be the proverbial squeaky wheel or we end up being overlooked and or missing out on opportunities.

And if you know me, you know that unfulfilled potential drives me crazy. If there is something that will push me to turn my face southwards so that I can see evidence of what I missed that is often it.

The thing about that is sometimes you can go back to do what you missed out upon and sometimes you can’t.

But the great contradiction of that last sentence is that you won’t always know whether it is possible to do so until you get there.

So going backwards might be the thing that propels you forwards or it might be the thing that holds you back from moving on and you can’t know which it is until you experience it.

I remind myself and try to teach my children to remember that mistakes can be great experiences to learn from and that who we are today doesn’t have to be who we are forever because you better believe I am not who I used to be.

And if I didn’t know to think of this my pal Elvis reminds me of this every time I listen to If I can Dream.

Love that song, especially these words:

“But as long as a man
Has the strength to dream
He can redeem his soul and fly”

I am that dreamer and I am the guy who will push to live my dreams.

The 17 Worst Ways To Avoid Dying

I used to blog without fail 7 days a week.

I did it for years and often updated most if not all of my blog as I went about it believing that the focus on writing would  be of benefit to me as a writer.

But a while back I noticed that I was feeling physically and mentally run down and decided to try to figure out the cause so that I could correct it.

I didn’t pinpoint a single cause but began to wonder if it was a combination of some physical issue and something else and decided to try to test it out.

At the time I couldn’t afford health coverage for myself so I didn’t see a doctor figuring I could and would fight through it until things changed and I could go in.

Since it coincided with a period of time that I saw as being among the hardest I have ever been through I figured some of it had to be connected and decided I needed to disconnect and spend more time away from the computer.

That provided some significant relief which is why I don’t blog as often on the weekends as I once did.

How does this all tie into the 17 worst ways to avoid dying?

The central theme of that is I don’t want to look back upon my life and see that fear kept me in jobs or things that sucked the life out of my soul.

I don’t want to wake up and discover I wasted time just passing time because I thought something better would tap me on the shoulder and say “it is time to change.”

It doesn’t mean there haven’t been moments where I felt some sick sensation in my gut or some sort of lightness of being that made me stop and think because there have been.

Doesn’t matter whether you believe in fate or destiny or free will, we have a tendency to look at that sick feeling as being related to the burrito we ate or the lightness as coming from the beer we just drank.

I want to be the conductor of my life, not the passenger.

A Final Comment

That sick feeling showed up on Friday afternoon, a sense that something isn’t right with certain things.

I hate the anticipation that comes with it and the sense of foreboding.  Sometimes I am the most patient person you met and sometimes I am not.

Got the feeling I better sharpen my sword because the battle is coming and I intend to win this one.

And there you have it another blog post in the books, you just never know whether you will read about blowjobs or The Difference Between Bloggers & Writers now do ya.