You can be sitting there saying to yourself “Wow that’s a very morbid thought.” I agree it is. However, it is a very true statement. While the old saying goes: there are only two things in life you have to do. Die and pay taxes “This is a false statement. You can make a choice to pay taxes.

Taxes are still an option. Awarded the penalty for not paying taxes is very high, it remains an option. If you do not believe that taxes are an option just ask Al Capone. He chose not to pay taxes and that is what led him to jail. Not any of his other crimes.

Now if he would have paid taxes he could have remained outside the gray bar hotel.

Death on the other side can not be deceived. Many have tried. Anyone who tried to cheat death in the end failed. For an example of this, just look at Walt Disney. He was frozen to try to cheat death.

With death it doesn’t matter how old you are. What race or nationality you are. Your educational level, or your back ground have an effect.

I really believe in fate and karma. Let’s say it’s no surprise then that I think that from the moment we are born until the time of death it is predestined when and how we die.

At the time I was eighteen when I came to these conclusions. You see my grandfather died of a heart attack. This was part of a month before my 18th birthday. Then three months later, my best friend passed away. He was involved in a very bad car accident. About six months after my biological father past. Once again we believe it was because of his heart.

I say this not for sympathy. I say this simply to illustrate my point. It was shortly after this that I realized death is the only certainty in life. In fact, I believe that knowledge and acceptance of this can be a blessing in disguise.

Most people fear death. The main reason we know that people fear death is the uncertainty of it. Over all religions basically they all believe they are bodies that have a spirit or a soul. Most people believe that after what is the physical body dies spirit, soul and energy continues to live on a different plain.

Native Americans believe they are spirit would go on to the happy hunting ground as we passed. Most other religions believe in a form of heaven and hell.

Once we know and accept that death is inevitable we can move beyond these fears. Once we move beyond fear, and except are own mortality that can become better people. If you agree that you will die, then you can really start living.

As we are liberated from the bonds that are fear of death, and began acting like today could be my last day on earth. There may be things there that no provision dealing with the risk of death. However, if we knew where they die a week from Tuesday at 3:00 pm then we can try some of those things.

We all have concerns whether money, or something else. I say we still have to worry some about it. You have to worry a little less and live a little longer.

Tim McGraw has a song live as if you were dying. That song is exactly what I’m saying here.

After reading this, I hope that helps you realize the time we have is short. So next time you’re doing something and your kids come to you and ask if you can take them fishing, take them swimming, going to the park with them, or simply read a book with them. You stand and take time from his busy schedule and enjoy the small pleasures of life.

The Breakdown Method

This is the most common response to situations that cause immense stress. I say that because whether it is in the beginning or the end, the original or final stage, eventually you will breakdown to some degree.

The breakdown method is about the release of emotions. A loved one is in the hospital and you feel lost. Your life is flying out of your control and you react emotionally. To whatever degree, you are breaking down. You are at a loss of control. It isn’t bad, unless you go to extremes, but everyone needs emotional release.

I saw a woman crying, sobbing as well as simply weeping, attempting to control her emotions, and failing. This is human. It was nothing to be embarrassed about, people understand.

The Blame Something, Anything Method

This is the least socially accepted method of dealing with stressful situations, and might I say in my experience, the ugliest.

When some people feel out of control, or scared, and they don’t know how to deal with it, they need something tangible to blame. It may come in the form of blaming a doctor who couldn’t save a patient, or a family member who made a decision that didn’t turn out as expected. I’m not talking about blaming the battery in your car when it won’t start, that is a logical response for that given situation. I’m talking about the illogical flying off the handle when things really are outside of human control.

I witnessed a man make a scene in a hospital waiting room, blaming the clergy for going in to see his father before him. He yelled, he struck out at the man verbally, because he needed the release of having something to blame. It was ugly; the family was embarrassed, which added additional stress when none was needed.

The Helpful Method

When things are outside of your control, sometimes you go out of your way to gain control of other things. You become Helpful. You make sure others have food, drink, etc. You make sure you’re available to assist. It’s a beautiful gesture, and sometimes focusing on the things that would make life easier during a stressful situation gives a person something to focus on and give you back a little bit of control over your life.

There was a woman in this family that made several trips to the cafeteria, made sure everyone had coffee and sodas, even offered to go collect children from childcare and watch them all at her house until things settled down. It was loving offer after offer. I’ll never know if they took her up on her offers, but as she ran about, you could tell that it was her way of hiding from what was going on at that time. I hope that means that she dealt with the stress later, somehow, because bottling it up never helped anyone.

The In-Charge Method

This is as close to a hero as any person who chases down criminals or runs into fires to save lives. This is the person that pulls it all together and makes things happen so that everyone else can deal in their own way, breaking down, blaming something, helping out. They take charge. They answer questions, fill out paperwork, setup networks so that everyone is updated as things happen and know who else to contact to continue the chain. They make difficult communications when the need arises, they take the night shift, etc. They remain rational while the situation exists, only breaking down in private, and once it’s safe to let go of the control they had to accept.

A man I’ll never know, a member of the family that I sat near, behaved as though he were meant always to be in charge.  When the woman was crying, he comforted her. When the other man was throwing a fat and making a scene, he followed and calmed him down. He helped the helper carry the parcels of food and drink. He was given the task of delivering the bad news to the matriarch of the family. He was the first one at the hospital, and as I understand it the last one to leave the next morning. He made himself everything that the family needed at that time.

These are just four of the numerous ways that people deal with the stress that happens in their lives. They are broad examples, but watching this family and the myriad of variations of these four methods gave me a better view into myself and how I deal with things within my own life. I only hope that by passing this one, you too may gain that insight.

An impulse, in its most basic form, is simply the derivative of a step function. Okay, I’m hearing groans from my audience here. Please hang on while I continue to peel the layers off of this and simplify to the extent of my means. A step function is like turning on a switch at zero seconds. The value instantaneously goes to 1 and stays there for infinity. A derivative is simply a way to describe the rate of change of a function. So, taking the derivative of this so-called step function yields an infinite amount of change, at one single point. This point is infinitesimally small and nearly zero, but within that minuscule time segment, the impulse’s value is infinite. An interesting note, albeit completely irrelevant to our current discussion, is that the area contained in an impulse is 1. Weird, huh?

Well, I hope that the concept of the impulse is somewhat understood. Imagine now, if you will, that as one passes into death, the brain creates an impulse. All outside senses become cut off, and the mind’s eye (nose, mouth, ears, and rest too) takes control. In this impulse, I think that the infinite magnitude is actually time, inside this brain. That’s right; the afterlife is simply an instantaneous dream! It is not too hard to imagine. Have you ever had a dream, while waking up that seemed to last hours yet you know that it probably happened in mere seconds? It is the same concept, except on a much larger scale.

I find this to get very disturbing. Imagine that your entire experience in “heaven” is totally created by you. You interact with people who you’ve known, and have passed before you. These are just creations in your own mind. These aren’t individuals, but creations made by you. They aren’t really there, in fact, they too experienced their own heaven at their moment of death. They imagined years down the road, countless relatives and descendants arriving. It is all fictitious. This infinite amount of time happens instantaneously to the alive, outside observers. In our realm of time (the living realm of which I’m still a member) we have no clue that this person just reached infinity. That now gets back to the assumption, based on this model of afterlife, which declares that how you view yourself plays a major role in shaping your afterlife. If you feel you are ultimately good, and deserve the best; you will have a wonderful life, after death. If you are full of bad thoughts, they will manifest themselves in your mind for infinity.

That is a brief introduction to the haunting theory that makes me unsettled. It is a definite motivator to be the best that one can be, though. Who’s to say if this is the case? Not I. I value all suggestions, and my views change continually. I’ve been working hard on developing a plausible adaptation of afterlife that involves true infinity and a real connection with other individuals, but it is still a tricky one. I would much rather believe in something with more community, but the unfortunate fact is that my mind grabs on to the most plausible and allows that thought to flourish and move itself into the classification of truth.