#105: Waiting to Die [Video + Podcast]

Welcome to Episode #105 of the Fight for a Happy Life podcast, “Waiting to Die.”

My wife and I once found ourselves in a scary situation. Fortunately, we lived to tell the tale… so I’m going to tell it!

Of course, you don’t need to survive a scary situation to remind you that life is short—or at least you shouldn’t! But consider this…

From the moment we are born, we are all waiting to die. The big question is are you making the most of your life before that day comes?

In this episode, I’ll share my thoughts on how to live a healthy, productive life. We may not control everything (or much at all!), but we should definitely try to take control when we can.

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Thanks for listening! Keep fighting for a happy life!

Waiting to Die

Here’s the video. If the player doesn’t work, click this direct link.

As always, if you’d like to keep the conversation going, feel free to leave a comment here or through my Contact Page.

TRANSCRIPT

Howdy, friend. Ando here from Happy Life Martial Arts. Welcome to Fight for a Happy Life, the show that believes even a little martial arts makes life a whole lot better. And I really do believe that.

Today, I’ve got a story for you. It’s a short story, but it’s pretty intense. Frankly, the story has a lesson in it that pretty much speaks for itself. But you know me, I will beat it into the ground, so make sure you stick around for that. Let’s get right to it.

Okay, this story occurred a few years ago now. On a sunny day in Los Angeles, my wife and I were out running errands. Turns out she needed some hair product, so we stopped into a drugstore. I realize now that many stories in my life have started with my wife needing hair product and us walking into a drugstore.

Okay, but on this particular day, we’re standing in the aisle, and she’s deliberating over every brand of hair product there is. And I’m kind of tuned out until I sensed a disturbance in the force…

Some voices were getting kind of loud towards the front of the store, and so I glanced over. And all of this happens in a split second, okay? So I’ll try to slow time down here. But as I glanced over– I’m hearing loud voices– and as I’m locating the source of the sound, in a split second, I see a scruffy guy standing at the cash register, clearly having some type of words, some type of argument, with the employee at the cash register.

And then his hand raises, the sunlight catches it, and I see that little sparkle, it’s metal. So I say, Gun! Yes, in public, out loud, I scream, Gun! And then I ran.

Okay, so wait, hold on, hold on, hold on. Don’t judge me. First of all, I am willing to help in a bad situation. I’ve told other stories where I’ve gotten involved. But in this particular case, the cash register was perhaps 20, 25 feet away. Obstacles in the way.

It seemed that this situation was already gonna go the way it was gonna go. So in that split second, my instinct was run. So I’m not gonna apologize for that.

Secondly, if you saw this on a security camera, if you saw me, it probably would have looked like I was a hero of sorts. Because I say to the store at large, gun! And then I immediately turn, as if shielding my wife, and herd her towards the back of the store, away from the gunman. And then we both bolt down that aisle.

Okay, but now an honesty check. If she had been standing on my left when I had seen what I saw, I’m not convinced necessarily that I would have grabbed her and pulled her with me. It’s possible, just possible, I would have darted off on my own. But we don’t know, because that’s not the way it happened. I’m going to go with what the security camera shows, which is a heroic husband herding his wife down the aisle.

All right, so anyway, back to the story. Gun, turn, push wife, running down aisle. So we’re booking down the aisle, and there’s still voices behind us. That’s the only noise I’m hearing. And as we’re coming to the end of the aisle, towards the back of the store, an old man comes rounding the corner, and I’m about to run straight into him.

He’s on a walker. He’s got both hands on a walker. He’s coming around that corner. He doesn’t know what’s going on. Perhaps he’s not hearing well. Like I say, he’s old. Even an old man would look at this man and say, he’s old.

So he’s barely getting around the corner. I almost run straight into him. So I kind of peel off. I just glide past him. And as I pass him, I say, there’s a guy with a gun. That was my helpful citizen help at that moment. I said, there’s a guy with a gun. And slid right past him. And my wife and I headed to the back of the store.

So I’m not going to see that guy again. He’s a sitting duck. There’s no chance for that guy.

Now, as we’re booking, we run out of store. We’re already in the back. So we turn towards the corner. And there’s one of those kind of fake doors that separates the back of the store from the front of the store, kind of rubbery type of shield things. So we burst through that, right? Because this is an extraordinary circumstance.

We burst through that, looking for a door out of the building. Sure enough, there’s a door right there. A big cinder block wall. There’s the door. Big bar across the door. Push on the door. Locked. Actually chained up. There’s a big chain wrapped around it. That door is locked.

No, no, no. How can this be? Boom, boom, boom. But we can’t get out. All right.

So quickly, looking around this very small space, there’s a very narrow staircase leading to what looks like an office space up on the second floor. Perfect. So we both book up the stairs, get through the door, leave the lights off. It’s dark. Close the door.

There’s no lock or anything on it, but we just close the door and we huddle to the back of the room. And that’s it. In that moment, listening for gunshots, listening for mayhem, hearts pounding in our ears, right?

I shouldn’t speak for my wife. Heart pounding in my ears. We were basically just waiting to die. In my mind, this guy’s on a shooting spree. He’s going to come through that door any moment and he’s going to just shoot us.

Now, this didn’t last long at this point–once we got up to this office. But there was just enough time, thankfully, to learn a lesson. There was just enough time for my mindset to switch from hiding, waiting to die, and have that change into, Wait, if anyone comes through that door, we attack. It doesn’t matter what he’s got, what the gun, it doesn’t matter. We’re going down fighting.

So there was just enough time to make that switch from doing nothing and deciding to do something if that situation arose. Now, at this point, it’s been quiet. Other than some excited voices, it’s been quiet. No gunshots have been fired. And we eventually hear an employee say, he’s gone.

Okay, so it seems like the coast is clear. And now I’ll tell you why there were no shots fired. I was wrong. He did not, in fact, have a gun. That was my bad. It turned out it was a knife. More properly, it wasn’t even a knife. He had a piece of metal. Sure enough, it was metal. I got that part right. And it had been sharpened. It was like a crude machete type of thing.

There was a genuine threat. He did in fact slash the employee across the face with it. And I believe he received first aid, an ambulance came, and I believe they took him to the hospital. We didn’t have to give a statement or anything like that, so we didn’t stick around. So he was taken out.

And for what it’s worth, the scruffy guy was in fact, a homeless guy. And he was known to the employees in the store. He was actually someone who had kind of taken camp, or made camp, in the front bushes of the store. So they knew him from just kind of being in and out, or having the police come and clear him away a couple of times.

So we found out that they had known him, but he was in fact arrested anyway. Well, of course.

So there you go. So by the end of this story, my wife and I are safe. The injured employee had been taken to the hospital. The bad guy had been arrested. And we left with a hair product and a lesson. If it isn’t already obvious to you…

What are the lessons here?

First of all, the big lesson. Life is all about chance. Life is just built on chance. Two kinds of chance that I’m going to break it down into.

I think there’s passive chance and active chance. Passive chance is the idea of, Hey, you know what? Sometimes you’re just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

On the other hand, you might be in the right place at the right time. So it can work either way for you.

Bad things can happen to you for no reason, and good things can happen to you for no reason.

But either way, you have nothing to do with it. It’s just what the universe has in store for you. Passive.

The other kind of chance, active. And by active, I mean you’re choosing things. You are purposely taking chances. Choice. That’s the mechanism of chance. Choice.

Your choices at any given moment are going to put you on a path for either these chances or those chances. Good chances, better chances, bad chances, whatever. But your choices are going to dictate your chances.

What do you do? What do you not do? That’s what it comes down to. Because not doing something is also a choice, right? You choose to do something or you choose to wait and not do something.

Take the old man for example. Because he’s the key character to this whole story, in my opinion. The old man took a chance by choosing to leave his house that day. He is physically vulnerable. He’s on a walker.

I don’t believe he could hear very well because he hadn’t already turned for the back door when I yelled, gun. So here’s someone who’s vulnerable, yet he left his house. He took that chance to leave. Presumably he drove. He certainly didn’t walk. He drove there and I’m sure his reflexes aren’t what they used to be.

So he took a chance getting into a vehicle. How about that? Now you could say, wow, maybe that was reckless. Maybe he shouldn’t have left the home, his house, or the home. Maybe he shouldn’t have been driving. But on the other hand, isn’t he also taking a chance staying at home?

Don’t you also take a chance not socializing with anyone and just being in your home all day alone? Doesn’t that lead to isolation and loneliness and depression? Doesn’t that take you down a different path? Yeah.

Not exercising his independence. Still feeling, no matter what his vulnerabilities are, that he’s able to get into a car, drive himself to the store, buy what he needs and come home. Just that exercise of willpower. That is worth something.

And isn’t it also true that he could be at home, choosing to not go out, fall in the shower, no one’s there to help him, and he dies alone in the bottom of a shower. So he’s taking a chance whether he leaves the home or whether he doesn’t leave his home. That’s why this is so interesting.

Let’s talk about me. Even more interesting. Number one. Well, I could take a chance at running towards this guy who I thought had a gun, or even if I knew it was a knife, you could take a chance to go over there and intervene and maybe help out. That would have been taking a chance.

What if instead of thinking about the back door, I see the front door? It’s around the bad guy. What if I just grabbed my wife and we both ran out the front door? We could have taken a chance to go closer to the action to go out that exit to escape. We chose not to.

Okay, so chosen not to engage with the bad guy, chosen not to go towards the danger, towards the door, but we’re still choosing to escape. So now we’re choosing to go towards the back of the building.

Okay, that’s our new chance. Now we take a chance, choosing to hide. If our mentality had not switched to choosing to attack, then we’re taking a chance that maybe he’s going to open the door, he sees us, but maybe I can negotiate. There’s a chance, there’s something I can offer him or talk him down or somehow relate to him in some way so we don’t get shot or spare my wife, shoot me, whatever.

It’s all taking chances. Even attacking would be taking another chance. If not in the front of the store, up in the office, it still would have been taking a chance. So either way, you’re taking chances.

So that leads us to the big question…

What type of chances are you taking?

What dictates your choices? Which path of chances are you putting yourself on in any given moment and why? I think it’s a deep, deep question, really.

Are you the kind of person, have you trained yourself to be someone, who waits or someone who does things and takes action? Are you the type of person who holds on to kind of see, let’s see what happens, let’s see what happens before I make any decisions? Or do you say, you know what, it doesn’t matter what’s happening, I’m going to start making things happen. I’m going to make some opportunities here.

Are you the type of person who is hiding away from the world and hoping good things come to you and hoping bad things stay away from you? Or are you the kind of person who is attacking life that carries its own hopes? You’re going to go on the attack and hope you get good things and avoid bad things, but it’s still hope, it’s still chances.

So what kind of person are you? Are you living your life based on passive chance or active chance?

Now, like I said, this doesn’t have to be a long episode today. I think these lessons are really clear. For me, I believe I would like to be known as someone, I would like to become a person who is not hiding. I don’t think that hiding and waiting is a very healthy or productive lifestyle, generally speaking.

Of course, there’s always going to be times where you need to gather more information, we have to let certain situations play out naturally. Yeah, it doesn’t have to always be go, go, go, do, do, do. No, there’s a balance, of course.

But what I’m talking about specifically is this idea of hiding because you’re afraid to take a chance. That’s different. And I think you know what I’m talking about. If not you, think about the people you know.

I have no doubt that you know people, people you love, people you care about, who are hiding. Maybe they have a talent they’re not using, a skill set they don’t employ, potential that is not being met. And that could be a dicey subject to judge someone and try to measure what’s your potential and what are you actually manifesting and making happen. That could be a little murky. But the point is the same.

You know people who are, let’s say, underperforming, who are purposely not engaging with life the way you would hope they would, because you know they have something good to offer.

I know certainly if you teach martial arts, as I do, you know what, even if you’re just a fellow student with other martial artists, other students that you care about and you see developing, but they’re not developing enough. You see a student giving up in sparring, or tapping out too early, or using an injury to play it safe and not push themselves in other ways that they could, but they use that injury as kind of a way to hide behind something, so they don’t have to participate 100%.

Afraid of failure, afraid of success, I talk about these themes all the time, but that’s all under this umbrella of hiding. Something is preventing you from actively making choices that put you on a path that takes more chances, the chances that you can be proud of, win or lose.

So, bottom line, I believe life is for living. It’s not for waiting. It’s certainly not for hiding. Life is about taking chances, not just waiting and hoping that the chances that are already in place are going to favor you. I just don’t think that’s healthy or productive.

There’s one detail of this story that I left out…

And again, to me, the old man is the key figure in this story, because he would be an example of someone who was just at the wrong place, the wrong time, and you would hope by that point in his life that he had made enough active choices in his life. He had taken willfully chances that he wanted to, so he could die with no regrets, so that he could die a happy death. That would be my hope for him.

But here’s this last little detail that you might find interesting. I did.

The day that this all happened was Ash Wednesday. If you’re not familiar, Ash Wednesday is a Christian holiday, a holy day. I think that’s the same word, a holy day, where you mark your forehead, a priest, marks your forehead with ash, literally ash. And it’s a reminder.

It’s a reminder that you are from ash and you will return to ash. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. So basically the theme is mortality. That we’re all going to die. We’re all waiting to die.

Now that might sound like a downer, a bummer. However, the flip side of it is life is short. So you want to make the most of it. You don’t want to be in hiding. You don’t want to be passive. You want to take those chances. You want to make some choices that put you on the path as close to what you want as possible.

So yes, the message that you should already know is we’re all waiting to die. From the moment you’re born, we’re waiting to die.

And passive chance might bring you disease or a stray bullet or a car jumping a curb, and it takes you out immediately. You had no chance, and that was your life. So we’re all waiting to die in that way. But there’s more than one kind of chance that we can take. It’s not all passive, it is active.

So my question to you, my friend, is are you actively taking chances? Are you on the attack in your life? Are you curled up in a dark corner? Or are you out there in the light, swinging, swinging punches?

I hope that you’re living your life as much as you can, your way, not waiting around, but making things happen. To me, that feeling of hiding, when we were up in that dark office, it was so symbolic. I told you, I’d beat this into the ground. We were sitting, I think, I believe, we actually went not only into this dark office, closed the door, but then we were sitting for a moment.

I don’t know why we grounded. Be a smaller target, perhaps. And that felt exactly like death. It felt exactly like death.

What is death? You dig a hole, let’s say, at the end when it’s all over, and you’re put in the ground in a box, and it’s dark, and you’re just there motionless. Stuck, trapped, limited, boxed in. And that’s what it felt like.

If you feel like that in any time in your life, at any time, we’ve got to break out of that. We’ve got to stand up. We’ve got to get that dirt out of our face, and get out and back into the light, get up on top. Because it’s just no way to live down there. Don’t hide.

The big message, my friend, life is short. Don’t go down waiting to die. Go down fighting for a happy life.

Okay, let’s not waste another second. Life is very short, my friend, so I’m very honored that we can spend a little time together.

Until I see you next time, smiles up! Let that smile be your shield and your sword. Keep fighting for a happy life.