What The Untimely Death Of My Brother Taught Me About Control And Choice
A timeless lesson to carry us through moments of pain and the everyday grind
There are times in your life you never forget.
The best moments come back as fond memories, which provide warmth out of the blue on random days. But the bad ones return too. However, there’s no warmth in these; only pain that hopefully decreases bit by bit over the years.
I just had one of these terrible ones. The instant it took place I knew it would haunt me for years to come. My brother died at our business at the young age of fifty five. Right in front of me.
Not only did I have to deal with what I saw, but the memory of it set off every day to come by random things at our business and my home.
His empty chair at work
The parking place in front of our store where paramedics performed CPR
The pets he left behind at our building I’d now have to take care of from now on
His wife and child that instantly became my roommates
Shocks like this have a tendency to paralyze, and this was no different.
Chaos filled my brain at points. Sometimes upon opening the business — by myself now — the quiet would hit me like a truck. I’d have to sneak away into a back room to gather myself, before getting ready for the day.
Not to mention planning the funeral. Someone would have to speak, and so far no one felt strong enough to string words together — including me.
While I’ve stumbled, I haven’t collapsed. There’s one recurring thought that’s helping me get up every morning and face the things to come. It’s about control and choice.
The lesson is so powerful, it’s been echoed across thousands of years by different voices, using multiple languages. It gives us choice where we think we have none. Plus, a semblance of control in the most powerless of circumstances.
I first heard about it from an ancient philosopher.
Many Teachers Echo The Same Lesson
About two thousand years ago an unfortunate man lived in Rome. His name was Epictetus, and he was a slave. He lived a rough life, but eventually won his freedom and even attended school.
He later became a teacher himself, reaching a status so high Roman Emperors read his lecture notes. His greatest lessons were about misfortune. In his Enchiridion he sums up his teachings in one statement:
“Sickness is a hindrance to the body, but not to your ability to choose, unless that is your choice. Lameness is a hindrance to the leg, but not to your ability to choose. Say this to yourself with regard to everything that happens, then you will see such obstacles as hindrances to something else, but not to yourself.”
In other words, you can’t control what happens, but can choose how you think about it.
Thousands of years in the future psychologist Viktor Frankl came to the same realization as he fought to survive in horrific concentration camps during WWII. He learned a mental death soon led to a physical one.
So, he found reasons to live even in a place where everything was taken from him. In Man’s Search For Meaning he states:
“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
This lesson continued again in 2005, when author David Foster Wallace gave one of the most famous commencement speeches of all time at Kenyon College, which is now known as This Is Water.
He reminded the graduates that the most important thing they must gain in college isn’t knowledge. He says, “The really significant education in thinking that we’re supposed to get in a place like this isn’t really about the capacity to think, but rather about the choice of what to think about.”
Wallace also starts the speech with a joke about fish, where one asks another how the water is today. The punchline? The other fish doesn’t know what water is. It’s so caught up in life, it can’t realize it’s in water.
We live life the same way. Wallace says we can choose to be miserable at work, in traffic, and with those around us, or choose to think another way. We must realize this is water.
Former Navy SEAL Jocko Willink codified the lesson into one word: “good.” He instinctively repeats it when something unfortunate happens. He clarifies this by saying:
“Accept reality, but focus on the solution. Take that issue…and turn it into something good. Go forward. And, if you are part of a team, that attitude will spread throughout. Finally, if you can say the word ‘good,’ then guess what…It means you’re still breathing. And if you’re still breathing, that means you’ve still got some fight left in you.”
Then, I got my final lesson in the oddest place.
A Final Lesson From A Stranger
One of my new chores since my brother’s passing is driving into work on Sunday to feed the pets he kept at our business. I usually park in front. But today a small truck beat me to the spot.
I wasn’t looking forward to walking through the door and looking at the empty chair again. Plus, the guy in my spot had me annoyed. As I walked to the front door, the guy in the truck stopped me.
Our store is in a bad neighborhood, and I expected the worst. But something else happened. The guy barely spoke English but managed to string together enough words to tell me he was sorry about my brother’s passing.
Instantly, that lesson about control and choice came to me again.
That random guy made me forget my pain for a minute, and covered up the parking place I hated to see again. Or perhaps, I chose to see it that way. What’s the difference? This is water. Good.
I also resolved to give that speech at my brother’s funeral. It’ll be about choice and control. I’ll also share Epictetus with the other mourners.
Hopefully, this lesson can help them, like it’s helped me. And you as well.
-Originally posted on Medium 2/21/23