My dad died this week. Naturally, my thoughts have turned to longevity and morbidity. Due to the sedentary and solitary nature of writing, as a group, writers can be especially vulnerable to the wages of Time. I have some thoughts about getting healthier, happier, and staying that way. This is a smorgasbord. Take what you tastes right for you.
- Get up from your desk at least once an hour, preferably twice. Move more. Walk more, even if you, like me, would prefer nature to be paved. Despite all the gross bugs, the tree huggers and grass touchers are on to something.
- Wear sunscreen, even if it’s cloudy. If traveling by plane, follow the example of your flight attendants and wear more sunscreen. Radiation is higher up there.
- Cook at home more. The dirty dishes are worth the trouble. I’ve recently become obsessed with the Mediterranean diet. It’s not just about calorie deficits, looking good, or losing weight. It’s good for your brain, too. Consider the MIND diet and the Dash diets. Healthy food doesn’t have to taste like shit.
- For your muscles and your bones, lift weights.
- Work on your balance. Falls kill.
- Strengthen your core because that helps immensely with #5.
- Work on your VO2 Max because breathing is good. Google kettlebell ladders and VO2 Max and you’ll get the details.
- Eat fewer processed foods and cut down on sugar. In the past, we focused too much on low-fat, high carb diets. That didn’t work. Managing insulin and glucose blood levels is key.
- Get regular medical checkups. Be your most charming with your doctors so they put the care in healthcare.
- Join a community or build one. Could be a book club. Could be all about collecting something or other. Doesn’t matter as long as you interact with others. We are social animals. (This one is the most difficult for me, especially since the pandemic.)
- Ask for help. Allow others to help you instead of being embarrassed. You’re frustrating your helpers.
- Offer help. It feels good.
- Take the risk of loving someone and being loved. I have often turned away from love because it meant trusting another person. That gives them power, sure, but it’s worth the risk.
- Don’t live so damn small! Live bigger in any way you can. Take that hike in the woods. Enjoy that nap. Feel the dawn’s sunlight on your face. Take in the view. Kiss. Do cool shit. Make fun memories.
- Stay in the moment, and savor the good ones. I’d tell you to forgive and forget, too, but I don’t know how to do that.
- Hope, even when it’s stupid.
- Be kinder to yourself, especially in the ways you talk to yourself.
- Don’t waste your time and breath on those determined to be shitty to you. It’s not your job to fix anybody else. That’s their responsibility.
- Have somewhere to be that’s good and safe. Humans need nests, too.
- Unclutter your life and space. Free yourself of the things that own you.
- Value experiences over stuff you have to dust.
- Keep learning cool things. Don’t focus on things you’re not good at. Bad at math? Who cares? You would have been a miserable accountant or astrophysicist, anyway.
- Don’t be too attached to your ideas. That should keep you out of cults.
- Consider advice, but your experience is your own. Heeding advice is up to you.
- You will need more than second chances. That is expected. It’s okay. We all need more chances.
- Hate those who deserve it, but don’t make hating someone your entire personality.
- If you’re going to be mean, be funny. It’s more effective.
- Laugh more. It’s going to help you get through a lot, even the worst things.
- Stop trying so fucking hard to be perfect. Settle for attempting excellence.
- Take breaks. Keeping your accelerator to the floor all the time makes your engine explode.
- Indulge your curiosity. Dare to have conversations with interesting people.
- Take deep abdominal breaths to remind your nervous system you are (probably) not running from a bear. You’re just sitting at a red light freaking out.
- Leave earlier and you won’t have road rage. Stop rushing to the scene of your next accident.
- You’re worried about the wrong things, so you may as well stop that shit now, right?
- Take the prescribed medication. Stop trying to heal your crippling anxiety with kale and vibes alone.
- There are things you are going to have to accept. Accept that. May as well.
- Cry as necessary. It’s a pressure release valve. No shame in that, and releasing that pressure might save your life (or your enemy’s life).
- Complain less to the public.
- Have at least one confidant to whom you can complain as much as you need.
- Time is much more important than money.
- Givers and people pleasers beware: Don’t set yourself on fire so some asshole can feel warm.
- Stop apologizing for existing. You’re alive, so take up space.
- Choose the lesser of two evils. It’s literally the moral imperative.
- Protect your peace.
- Don’t shame yourself for treating yourself. What’s being alive for if you can’t enjoy it?
- Be open to the possibility of fun. (I have a hard time with this, but I know it’s a good idea.)
- Dance.
- Listen for nuance.
- Watch videos of babies laughing. It will lift your spirits and help you remember what you were like before you worried about paying taxes.
- Sex. (This should have been much higher in this list.)
TLDR: I titled this “What To Do When Your Dad Dies” but obviously no one should wait for such a nasty wake-up call. Live as if your actions and inactions have consequences. You matter, goddamn it!
BONUS:
Purpose. Have one.
My father wrote a book. It gave him focus. When he was done, his days devolved. I won’t say aimlessness killed him. Cancer of the everything did that. However, I think being without purpose contributed to his spiral of depression.
Even then, jokes helped. (See #28.) He became hard to understand on the phone, but shortly before they took him out behind the barn, with sudden articulation, he told me emphatically, “I want to die!”
I calmly replied, “Shall I dispatch my assassins?”
That was the last time I made my father laugh.
~ My author website is AllThatChazz.com. I’d appreciate it if you bought my books, and you’d get a lot out of it, too.
Set in NYC at the end of the world, Endemic is a compelling story about how we change and how we don’t. This novel won the Literary Titan Award, first place in science fiction at the Hollywood and New York Book Festivals, and first place in genre from the prestigious North Street Book Prize. You’re going to love Ovid Fairweather as she rises from a lowly book nerd to become a queen in the apocalypse.
Filed under: Do Cool Shit, getting it done, robert chazz chute, Blog, coping, death, grieving, life, Love, mental health, Robert Chazz Chute, writing
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