Tag: death

So What About Ed?

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So what about Ed?

In my post from earlier in the week, I promised a little “unfolding” around Ed Dobson and us.

Here goes:

  • Ed is a representation of us all. You might think because you don’t have ALS, or some other disease, that you don’t have much in common with Ed. The true reality is your diagnosis hasn’t been delivered yet. Sorry to break the news, but no one gets out alive in the span of life.
  • I’m really concerned about the number of people I know, and don’t know, who walk around the planet acting immortal. The keyword is acting here. It is a sure recipe on how to miss out on your notes (love affairs, songs composed, three-point shots to take). These are the notes that only you can play.
  • The tangible things of life are often just substitutes for the notes. We’ve been sold a lot of BS that the truth of that statement is not truth at all. For example, your career title does not make you real. It’s your notes that make you real. Some call it marketing, some call it opinion, but the truth remains.
  •  Don’t wait until death or disease makes an impromptu appearance, before you choose to do what you know you need to do. Arrogance keeps many of us from doing what we need to do. We feel we’ve got time, we feel someone else should make the call, we cry that we’re too busy. Ed was and is blessed that he got more time than many. Most people lose the game when such a grave diagnosis arrives. George Michael once said, “there are those who have lost, and there are those who haven’t lost yet.” What are you waiting for?
  • I’m renewed in my belief and actions that we must play the notes we’ve been given. My friend Marc once told me that people will buy the you found in the endeavor. The you is found in the notes.

The Man in the Chair

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I was at a doctor's appointment a few weeks back. It was a normal appointment. I checked-in, sat in a chair in a non-descript waiting area and counted the minutes until my name was called. The process is not unlike what maybe you've experienced.

My visit coinsided with the 2012 Olympics. This is an important part of this story.

As I sat and waited for my eyes to dilate, I witness something that entranced me. A man sitting in a wheelchair.

I know that on the face of it, seeing a man in a wheelchair is not strange. I would agree with that. But this man was bright, alert and Engaged with the sport being played out on the screen in front of us in the waiting room. Stay with me.

The man in the chair was someone I noticed when I arrived at my appointment. He was hunched over and almost catatonic. He seemed to be a man alive, yet without life. At first glance I felt a level of sadness at the reality of struggling in the last act of living. Fast forward, I see him watching an Olympic competition and fully engaged. It was if someone woke him from the dead.

It was clear to me that this man in the chair found something worth coming alive for. I offer no definitive explanations. He saw something, maybe something lost.

The sad reality is I see people half the age of that man who look the same, but without a wheelchair. Alive, yet dead. Call me extreme and I will tell you to look around (really look around) and see the following:

  • An overly medicated population
  • A sedentary population
  • A surrendered population
  • An unhappy population
  • A population unable to resist 

I'm not pesimistic and I don't belive things can't be turned around. I'm trying to shake you with what I've seen. Maybe the man in the chair would say we need somthing to cheer for, be for, fight for.