Did I Die?

I want to tell you about a strange thought I had a few weeks ago, what I learned from it, and how it’s given me a fresh perspective on life.

For the most part, life has been good this past year. In every area of my life, I’m happy and growing. I don’t have everything I want yet, but I get to wake up each day and vigorously pursue it.

I’ve got a partner I enjoy who makes me better, my writing is growing more popular everyday, I’m nearly done with my physics degree, and I’m making money the way I want to. My health is great and I’m surrounded by love.

But it wasn’t always like this. Sometimes, when life is going very well, I think about how terrible of a person I was during my heavy drinking days. I think about how self-destructive I was and how many people had the displeasure of crossing my path while I was in this self-destructive state.

I think of all the times I got lucky no one was hurt or that I didn’t wind up dead or in jail.

From the foolishness that was my life during the ages of 22-28, I should at least have a criminal record. However, I’m living a life which is significantly different from the one I was living 5 years ago. After I pondered this for a few days, I came to the conclusion that the only way this change could happen was if I had died.

Even though I intellectually understand that it only takes 2 years to change your life, here I was 5 years later doubting that I even existed because things were so different. I figured I must be dreaming in my prison cell, or that I died and went to heaven (though I hardly think I deserved to go there)--or maybe I was in a coma after drunk driving accident.

The point is that my life is so different that I couldn’t believe I was alive. I actually called a good friend who recently married and finished the police academy. I can’t give details about her life and story, but this was a very different outcome for her compared to the trajectory she was on.

She was the only person I could think of to call and discuss this idea with. She said she also felt similar.

Then I met another friend of mine a few weeks later. This is a gentleman who runs a thriving counseling business, is an accomplished public speaker and holds a master’s degree. He’d actually been arrested before, but now his life is on a very different path. I gave him my comparison to dying because I was interested in his thoughts.

The following was roughly his response. I not only paraphrased, but mixed in some thoughts of my own insights:

Your actions in the universe set things in motion. Certain actions put certain things in motion. There is variance in a system as large as the universe so you don’t get EXACTLY the same experience each time. However, it’s precise enough that you’ll create and reinforce you own conditions every time.

You know this world as your reality. Your brain learns to function in this world you’ve created as a result of your actions. Your brain gets wired in a way to help you deal with the reality your actions have created.

This reality is very convincing for most people. They never try to change because they don’t even believe change is possible. Everything about their world says change isn’t possible. Their conditioned behaviors reinforces this reality.

But one day, you DO change. The change is in your entire being, but it starts with one little thing. It’s driven by one tiny action which forces the universe to react differently. At first, the changes are subtle. Over time, they build on one another--especially as you’re forced to behave in a different way to function in this new universe.

For my first friend, it was meeting her husband. For my speaker friend, it was meeting his wife. For me, I often think it was my sobriety. However, the truth is that I probably wouldn’t have gotten sober if it wasn’t for meeting my girlfriend.

I don’t know if there’s something to it being another person who serves as a universe changing catalyst, but this seems to be a commonality. I’ve since had a few conversations with a few different people, it often is a romantic interest who sparks change.

Although your actions have changed and your brain has rewired itself, you still have deep seated triggers and memories. Much like how a smoker smells cigarettes and wants to smoke or some alcoholics can’t go into a bar, occasionally you see or think of something in this new universe which reminds you of your old self.

Immediately, you feel drawn back to your old thoughts and habits. However, now you live a new life. Those old behaviors are strictly incompatible with the new you. Instead of being pulled back into the nightmare, you reflect and you wonder: how are you the person you are today, given the person that you once were? The obvious answer is that you died.

Not an actual physical death. It’s death in of the world you once knew which no longer exists. You no longer engage in the actions which sustain that world. People intuitively know their actions create their world, but they get it wrong when they try to use this idea to change their life.

Instead of changing what they do, they try to change their location. This never works because your physical location is irrelevant. Your actions create the world you inhabit. Not vice-versa.

This feeling of death is symbolic. What my friends and I, and countless others, are experiencing are memories which are incompatible with the life we lead now. How could the person you are now ever behave as the person you remember being? I seriously entertained the idea that I died doing something stupid in my old life.

The reality is that I started doing one thing differently. From there, a ripple was created which eventually brought down the old structures I built my life upon. This forced the emergence of a new life.

In reality, I didn’t really died. What really happened is that I was reborn. https://edlatimore.com/