On Mortality: Death is Always Closer than You Think

Chris Albert 00:00:00 (link to this point)

The Warrior Soul podcast is written, produced, and edited by me, Albert. Our mission is to provide tools, tactics, strategies, and ideas to US military veterans and anybody else willing to listen to help them to navigate toward living their absolute best lives. If you find these episodes helpful, please share them out with somebody that you know of that can use them. And if you really like the podcast, please also head over to iTunes and write us a written rating and a review. It really helps us to spread word about the show, and it really helps to get these tools in the hands of others who really need them.

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If you head over to www.dropanfbomb.com and use the code Warrior Soul at checkout, you'll get 20% off of that first order. And I'm gonna keep the announcements short and sweet today. If you can stick around to the end. I got a really special announcement about a brotherhood that we're creating here at Warrior Soul. So I hope you enjoy this episode.

I hope you get a lot out of it. And without delay, let's get into it.

This is Chris Albert, and I'm here to remind you of one thing. Someday, you're going to die. That's not some morbid statement or scary idea. It's solid fact. Your time here on this earth is limited.

We need to be reminded of this as much as possible for one simple reason, to live your best life while you can. This is the Warrior Soul podcast.

What's going on everybody? As you can hear from my voice, I am sick. And that comes with the territory of being in a relationship with a nurse. She gets a little cough, a little tingle in her throat, and then I end up with some crazy form of the Ebola virus that's putting me on my ass over here. So I'm gonna keep this short and sweet because I don't know that my voice lasted, and I don't think you guys wanna hear me like this.

But for those of you who follow me on Instagram and on social media, you might know that being sick isn't the worst thing that happened this week to me and my friends. We lost a dear friend this week. His name was Patrick Juni Gutierrez. And it it was an extraordinarily sad loss. And I have to say, and I'm not ashamed to say it, that over the past week, I've been crying like a baby every single morning.

And it's been horrible. And I know you guys feel this way too. And then today, August 25, on this day in 2006, my battalion lost Corporal Jordan Pierson in Fallujah, Iraq. And it brought the subject of of this episode to mind. How do we deal with losing people?

It's a valid subject, because inevitably in life, every single one of us is gonna lose somebody. Right? You can't go through this life without loss, without tragedy, without death. And whenever it happens, you know, we tend to look at death as somebody leaving us. And when it happens, it inevitably brings thoughts of our our own lives.

You know, we think, what's the world gonna be like without this person? How am I gonna be different without this person around? You know, what what's life gonna be like without this person being here? You know, and all those thoughts came to mind over the last week, Knowing that I would never hear him on the phone again, knowing I'd never hear his laugh. Knowing I'd never see him again.

And it got me to break down a lot. And I know that despite the fact that those memories hurt right now, that I'm gonna cherish them for the rest of my life, just like you probably cherish the memories of your friends, or you've lost. But one of the things I want to talk about here is this notion of us going on with the loss. You see, I think, and this is just my own opinion, that when we approach death, and we lose somebody, it's always in the frame of mind of ourselves. Right?

Notice how I framed it earlier. Right? Everything had to do with with us, how it was going to affect us, how it was going to affect our lives, how it was going to affect the world around us. You know, death itself doesn't do much to the person who died. The person who died is already dead.

They've already moved on. But it's everybody who's left behind that that bears the loss. And I think, to some extent, this is also an illusion. Because when you lose somebody, you start to look at the rest of your life as kind of a curse. Right?

You've got to bear without them. You've got to move on without them. You've got to be strong without them. But the truth is this, and I say it at the beginning of every episode of this podcast. It's gonna happen to every single one of us.

Every single one of us is gonna die. And that's not a grim fact. That's the absolute truth. So while I understand that we all have to grieve, we all have to mourn the loss. One thing that we can't do is to begin to see the rest of our lives as that curse because that's not honoring our dead friends.

It's not honoring the lost. What we've got to do is is understand that death is closer to us than we think it is. This life we're in right now, it is by no means permanent. And at some point, like I said, we're all going to be making that journey. So the thing is, what are we going to do with the time we got left?

Right? What kind of impact are we gonna bring to the world? How are we gonna affect this world? How are we going to leave our mark on this world? Right?

What are we gonna do for the people who are still alive? And how are we gonna live our lives in order to ensure that what our friends died for, especially those who sacrificed their lives for this country, doesn't go to waste. What I'm telling you is this, The way we normally approach death is to detach ourselves to it. I heard to detach ourselves from it, to try to separate ourselves as much as possible. And that's a big reason why we grieve so hard, right?

Because we look at it as if they're gone, we're here. And that's the way it's always going to be. And that's the natural reaction. But the truth is that death isn't so far away. You know, the author Carlos Castaneda, he said that death is always behind you.

They're tapping you on the shoulder, and I'm paraphrasing this. But when you think that you have no hope left, it's there telling you that I haven't touched you yet. And that's the thing, guys. When you experience loss, let it serve as a reminder to you that life is finite. It's hard, but it's also beautiful.

It's a chance to do some amazing things. A chance to love, a chance to build, a chance to help others, a chance to create, and a chance to leave your mark on this world no matter how great or small it it's gonna be. You know, I do this podcast every week. And it hasn't brought me tons and tons of money, hasn't brought me fame, hasn't brought me any of that kind of stuff. The reason I do it isn't for that.

The reason I do this is because my hope is that if one of you listens to this, and you feel better about your own life, and you start to take charge of your own life, and you start to to serve others, and to become a better and stronger version of yourself, well, that's what makes me happy. And this is how I'm creating my own small impact on this earth. And yours doesn't have to be a podcast. It could be the way you carry yourself every day. It could be the work you do.

It could be the kids you raise. It could be the people you interact with. Whatever it is, do your best because you don't have forever left. And I think that's all my voice has for today, guys. I apologize for the vocal quality, And I'll be back at you as soon as I can get whatever's going on with me in order.

And I love you all. Be good. And this is Chris Albert out. What's going on, gents? This is Chris again, and I wanted to come on here to gauge your interest on something.

I've been toying around with this idea for a while, and it's been to create a real brotherhood within what we do here at Warrior Soul, a community of men who are trying to live their best lives. And the concept is called this, the Warrior's Obituary Society. Its purpose is to empower its members to live epic lives worthy of an epic obituary. And the way it's gonna work is this. We've created an eight week development program.

That development program is gonna take you through a process of getting your body in order, your mind in order, your personal finances in order, your relationships in order. And then once that eight week program is done, then you will take your place in what's called the Warrior's Obituary Society. And that society is going to be an inner circle where we hold each other accountable for getting to our goals. We follow through on assignments each month, both mental and physical challenges, and we help in developing other new members who come in. What I wanna do right now is to put this out as a pilot program.

And I know that the details are a little bit hazy right now, but if what I just told you seems to pick your interest a little bit, send me an email over at chris@warriorsoulagoge.com. That's chris@warriorsoulagoge.com. What I'd like to do is to pilot this with a few of you to get things started so that you guys can take your place as leaders in developing new members as they come in. This will be a paid program, but I'm not thinking of anything crazy expensive or anything like that. There'll be a monthly fee to keep operations running and also to help to support this show and its production.

And like I said, what I'm trying to do here is to create a real community where we can all get together and help each other to have greater impacts on our family, our communities, and to make our visions in life come true. So if you're interested, let me know. Like I said, you can email me over at chris@warriorsoulagoge.com, and you can DM me over on my Instagram. The account's name is Warrior Soul Agoge. And thank you guys so much for listening.

I'll talk to you all very soon.