Do you remember when you were young and trying to determine which dad was the most accomplished with your friends? Sometimes I would give such exaggerated examples that my friends would start laughing at me.
Well, I can’t resist doing it again, except with personal catastrophes I’ve experienced. Then tell me which was the scariest for me at the moment they occurred.
1- one time in 1964 when I was a Mormon missionary in Argentina, a scruffy fisherman pulled a gun on me and told me he was going to shoot me. I froze . He snorted out, damn yankee. He pulled back the hammer. Then he put the gun in his fishing basket and walked off. My missionary companion said, “Elder, he was going to shoot you. You’re lucky he didn’t.” I was so shocked I had no response.
2- when I was a high school senior in 1962, one night after a football game, my buddy and I were walking to the car when a gang surrounded us and started a fight. I stood in place not knowing what to do. We were on the wrong side of town, and our team had won. At the time, I was the head varsity yell leader. I had been jawing with guys in the stands from the other side all night long. And they caught me and my buddy as we were nearing the car. They started shouting obscenities at me and saying they were going to kick the
s _ _ t out of me. Next thing I know, someone knocked my buddy to the ground. After that they walked off. I picked him up, apologized, put him in the car and away we went. “Why’d I get hit, they wanted you,” Dennis asked. “I have no idea, maybe it was the megaphone I was carrying.” He then blurted out, “Let’s go get some of our guys and go back kick the crap out of them.” I was quick with the reply, “Those guys aren’t even in high school. They’re hoods. And I have to come back here to play water polo, and for the basketball game.” He then asked, “what’re you going to do if you meet up with them again.” I ended the conversation by saying “ I have no idea, you want to come along?”
3- in 1987 I was in New York doing some consulting work. That week I had caught a cold and was nursing it with an off the shelf cough medicine. The second night I was there, I woke up around midnight in my hotel room and started coughing. All of the sudden, my breathing choked off to the point I couldn’t breath. I quickly got up, ran to the bathroom, looked at myself in the mirror, and said I was going to die. But after about fifteen seconds my throat cleared. I thought to myself, that’s a hell of a rough way to go. I flew back home early and found out I had viral pneumonia. For the next seventeen days I would have the same coughing spell with the same result of having my breathing close off. And everyday I was afraid it was my time. Finally it passed.
4- in 1983 at age 39, I left my first profession as a college religion instructor to become a management consultant. About two years into it, my major client said he may have to cancel my contract. That weekend I was scheduled to sail to Catalina Island on my friend’s sail boat. On the way over there a dark depression came over me thinking about that contract. I started hanging out over the boat thinking about falling over and sinking to the bottom of the ocean. I thought I would just fall over like Natalie Wood did on her trip to Catalina. But, my friend kept telling me to be careful. He kept interrupting me until we reached Catalina.
Well, which one do you think scared me the most?
Hands down, experiencing depression and contemplating falling overboard. No contest. It’s stupid to get depressed over a consulting contract. STUPID.
(My ten year old granddaughter Gretta just called me to see how I am doing. I told her that I’m trying to end this “stupid essay I’m writing.” She said that I shouldn’t use the word stupid. Why would you write something if you thought it was stupid. You’re right, I told her. Do you have any suggestions? Why don’t you say that when someone is feeling depressed, be nice to them.)
The moral of this story is, when someone is feeling depressed, be nice to them. They’re thinking is temporarily clouded.