Get Real Self Defense Podcast
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Get Real Self Defense Podcast
Ep #22: Exploring the Intersection of Death, Self-Defense, and Quality of Life
Ever found yourself in a situation that made you ponder over the concept of death? Well, I've had my fair share of those moments, especially during my tenure as a sheriff's deputy. One such incident that stands out is when I processed a DOA (dead on arrival). It's experiences like these that propel us to explore the profound relationship between death and self-defense, urging us to prioritize protection over desires.
Join me as we discuss the importance of service and protection, and how it extends beyond the physical realm. It's not just about safeguarding ourselves from harm; it's about living our lives in such a manner that when the inevitable happens, we die well. With personal anecdotes and practical advice, this episode will stimulate thoughts on how you can improve your self-defense abilities, enhance your relationships, and elevate your quality of life. So let's embark on this journey together, where we learn to live well, defend well, and die well.
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Today I'm going to talk about death. Now, obviously, that's a really heavy subject and it's one of those things that most of us don't like to talk about. And I'm not going to be talking about it in the sense of the doom and gloom, but more how does the concept of death actually associate with self-defense? And I'm not just talking about dying as a result of trying to defend yourself or somebody trying to kill you, but also how death and living actually correlates really well with why we do self-defense in the first place. Let's get started.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the Get Real Self-Defense podcast. Here you get your daily dose of personal protection discussion to help you be more confident and prepared to protect yourself and your loved ones. And now let's get real with self-defense.
Speaker 1:So, like I said, guys, I wanted to talk about the concept of death and just to give a little context. Where did this come from? Well, there's a couple different things that I wanted to talk to you guys about for this episode or even for the next sit down episode. But the other day, as you guys know for those that have been following me for a while you guys know that I actually am a sheriff's deputy for the area that I serve and one of the things that I had to process the other day was a DOA, which, for those that don't know, basically means that there was a person who had died and I was the one that had to go in and check on that individual. And I'm not going to get, because of the sensitivity of the matter and the personal information and how personal it is for the family. I'm not going to get into details of what I saw or anything like that, but I'm sharing this just to give context of where my mind is at and why I'm bringing up the concept of death and how it correlates to our lives and with self-defense as a whole. Now there's a couple things that I want to first give context on this as a whole when it comes to this individual dying really inspired me to analyze my own personal life, and my hope here is that by talking about some of these things, you might be able to have some inspiration to look at your own lives and see where you can also improve, just like I've learned ways through this interaction on how to improve myself and be a better protector, not only for myself, but for my loved ones and my community as a whole. So with that, one of the first things I noticed is when this DOA happened, the family was in crisis and obviously this is something that happens pretty much with any family that has a loved one pass. The family becomes in crisis, whether that be the children of this individual or the mother or father of this individual. You know there's going to be plenty of people who are in that crisis of set uncertainty. You know someone who is a part of their lives is just suddenly stripped from them and to give it on the other side. The other side of it was that same day, after I processed everything and did what I needed to do right, wrote my reports and helped move this individual out of their room and whatnot, so that they can go to the funeral home and I went home and I showered and everything else and got ready to take my family into town.
Speaker 1:And I'm sitting across from my children my two boys, whose one's almost four before any day now his birthday is just around the corner. And then I also have my eldest son who is going to be well, he's six and he's going to be seven later on. And then I have my wife who's sitting next to me and she's with child still. Yes, he hasn't popped out yet. It's supposed to be any day, so we'll see. He's been getting a lot of contractions and given the wife run for money and she's she's just ready for for the, for the kid to come out and join us.
Speaker 1:And so I'm sitting there, you know, got the pregnant wife next to me, I got my two little boys and I'm looking and I'm imagining my newest child who is still in the womb, sitting across from me with my other kids, and realize that if my, my youngest right now that's sitting across from me, my three-year-old was older and everything had shifted three years so that my youngest, the baby, became the same age as my three-year-old. That would mean that my three-year-old would be seven or almost seven, and then my seven-year-old would be ten, and it just shifting that three years for all the children and realizing that in three years my eldest is gonna be ten years old, is just crazy to me. And a lot of you that are listening, who may be parents or grandparents, might even feel the same, have had the same sentiment and probably are saying something along the lines of well, welcome to the club, buddy, and thank you glad to be here. But the point is that, between this death and seeing the life that's in front of me, these children and they're already moving across so fast it really just brought it all home for me. And so, when it comes to self-defense, how does this correlate? Well, if you're obviously somebody who's listening to this podcast and, like me, you want to become a better protector for yourself and your family, and I brought that part up multiple times you want to be a better protector for your community. Maybe you have a business where you do security, or maybe you are law enforcement, maybe you're military, maybe you are a doctor, maybe you're a lawyer, maybe you're just someone who works at a gas station and you want to be just a better individual that can keep themselves and their family safe when it comes to death?
Speaker 1:Obviously, okay, we talked about situational awareness and how being situationally aware of what's around us so we can know what's coming when it comes, so that we can be prepared for it, to defend ourselves accordingly. It correlates and is the same conceptually when it comes to situational awareness in our everyday life, not just the kicking and punching and scary bad guy jumping you on the street, but also what are you being situationally aware about when it comes to your everyday life, such as death. Death comes for us all. We want to ignore it, we want to pretend that it's not gonna happen, but, at the same time, if you since you know as well as I do that death does come, if you knew that that ninja was gonna be dropping from the rafters to attack you or, in this case, if there's a bad guy that was gonna cost you on October the 28th, at 2 pm at this specific location, at the intersection of you know crossing in Charles, you would know like you'd be prepared for it. You'd be ready for it and are you ready for the end of your life? And are you ready? Are you ready and are you preparing your family to be set up the best for whenever and if ever that were to happen.
Speaker 1:That doesn't mean we should be thinking about death all the time, don't get me wrong. But the idea is, if I were to pass right now, I know there's some things that I should do first to set my family up for the most success upon my passing. For instance, do I, do I have a good, solid enough life insurance policy? Do I have a will? Not too long ago, there's another death that I had to deal with and that person did not have a will, and there was multiple family members who were trying to claim and fight over certain things, because this person had been married a couple times and had got kids with several different people, and so all these individuals were trying to lay claim to his personal life that he had left behind, and so there was no will. Do you have something set up like that when we go on deployment for the military? At least in my experience, we were setting up basically an essentially a power of attorney and or will with family that is going to be left in the States when we went out overseas on deployment, and that is to prepare for minimizing some of those crises. Now at the same time, it's not about being ready for death in the sense of being fearful. Obviously, this person, this bad guy if we want to call death a person or bad guy that's going to jump you on that intersection of Cross and Charles is going to win, no matter what. Eventually they're going to win. So are you, as John Lovell of Warrior Poets Society and other individuals have said before him, you know, are you set up to die Well and dying well is an interesting concept and that is to say, bringing it all up Are you in a place where you feel like, if you were to pass on, you are happy with your life?
Speaker 1:Because, in my experience, the people that have passed on at the bedside are people who have regretted things. I regret not talking to my brother for 20 years, I regret, you know, whatever, and those types of things. If you have any sort of regrets, are you able to quote unquote defend yourself from that situation by ensuring that you try and strive to repair those relationships, that you apologize for, the things that you may have done wrong to others? Are you prepared for that kind of situation? If you were to, if you knew you were going to pass today, do you have everything done that you want to do and that you need to do.
Speaker 1:Obviously, needs are more important than wants. I want to skydive. I haven't skydived. I've jumped out of airplanes in the 82nd, you know, with static land parachute, but it's not the same as doing a skydive. I have not done that. I would like to do that. But that's a want.
Speaker 1:But a need is like repairing relationships, with people apologizing and committing to service. Because what are people going to say about you at the end? What is your family going to say? He, you know he was a very attentive father, a husband and friend, or are they going to say he was really busy with his work? So these are things to consider because, as you are working, as you are striving to give your family or give yourself a better life, the people around you, the relationships that you have also, are things that we still need to protect. We still need to protect them emotionally and spiritually and mentally as well as physically, and with that, are you striving to be a protector of those parts of your loved one's lives?
Speaker 1:And if you are questioning that same thing, then maybe make some adjustments so that you can be better at emotionally protecting or mentally or spiritually protecting your family, and so a couple ideas with this would be like, if your child wants you to play with them or spend time with them, or go out with them, or, you know, let's watch a movie together. Hey, dad, let's play chess. Hey mom, let's go walk on the beach please. You know I really like it when we walk on the beach. You know those types of things. Maybe take rearrange your schedule, take a few minutes to do that, and more than just once a week or once a month, but maybe more often than that, because you know your family and your loved one's better than I do. I know that one of my kids doesn't need me to hold their hand all the time and be physical with them. The other one is very physically interactive and likes and his love language is like basically touch, wrestling, you know jumping up and down, climbing, handshakes, holding hands, like all those things. He's very much into that. But the other one doesn't need that as much. So you need to read the room. Obviously Now for yourself.
Speaker 1:Let's say you don't have a family or you don't have any responsibilities. You know, are you serving your community? You don't have to have a family to give service and to be attentive. You know, part of being a good protector is not just being there when the bad guy comes out to shoot up the mall or shoot up the Walmart, but also be there to give service. Are you helping? You know, as a cliche, helping that old lady across the street opening a door for somebody who is about to walk through? Are you? You know, these are all things that we can do to give service. Or go to the soup kitchen and help those that are less fortunate in getting the food they need.
Speaker 1:My father one of the things that I thought was so dumb when I was a kid it just drove me nuts because it was always on Saturday, and Saturday I either wanted to sleep in or I wanted to, you know, play with, play video games or watch my Saturday morning cartoons. And as a kid, my father used to have my brother and I get up every Saturday and we would go to the local food markets or stores and basically say, hey, is there any food that you are looking to get rid of, that maybe are on the verge of spoiling or whatnot, that we can give to the food bank, so the food bank can deliver at the same day? And I thought it was just like you know, as a 13 year old, 12 year old, I thought it was just such a waste of time because I'm like, oh my gosh, I got things that I want to do. And, looking back on it, one of the things that my father has always done and is continuing to do and has taught me is that we need to still give service, because there's people who are less fortunate than us. And so I actually put in many, many hours getting up in the morning and picking up all these different random, you know almost nearly expired fruits and vegetables that were still good for another you know few days, and giving it to those people who are less fortunate by dropping it off to the food bank, and we did that every weekend. So there are things that you can do, things that we can do to be better at giving service to our communities. What are you doing with those?
Speaker 1:And I guess the last thing that I would like to kind of share, to kind of summarize all of this between death and between life, is we are not doing self defense because we fear dying or getting hurt, or at least we shouldn't. The reason why we should do self defense is so that we can preserve life and live our lives, and part of being able to do that is to live well so that we can die well. If you, for those of you that know, think about, like that song from Tim McGraw, live Like you Were Dying where he's talking about how, once they found out that they were on the verge of dying, what did they do? And paraphrasing from the lines from the song but the person went skydiving, went and climbed the Rockies, gave forgiveness, and these are all things that this person did because they knew they were passing on, and these are things that actually end up not only protecting themselves, if you want to call it that, but also protecting the loved ones and the relationships that he's or she is going to leave behind, which helps, in essence, protect your family emotionally, spiritually and physically on that passing. So, again, that's not to say that we should look and expect death tomorrow or focus on death or be paranoid about death. It's about being aware. So, guys, I hope that what I'm sharing makes sense. I hope that what I'm sharing resonates with some of you as far as the idea that, as we are trying to protect ourselves and protect others, that we also strive to give service to the end and live our lives with no regrets, to make sure that we are giving our families the best chance of success if we were to end up passing in that crisis scenario so that we can minimize the damage that can be done for our loved ones and set them up for the best chance of success. Guys, I hope that all helps.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Get Real Self Defense podcast. If you liked this episode or liked the other episodes that we have done in the past, please be sure to give this podcast a five star review on Spotify, apple. Wherever you listen to podcasts so far, we have like about seven on Spotify. If we can bump those numbers up, that'd be awesome. Please share this with your friends and family, because that is what I'm here to do is here to help you guys and give my little bit of giving service as well, and the way that you can help me out is by sharing this with those that you think will have a benefit for it, so that we can all come together as a stronger community and strengthening our friends and family in more ways than just the kicking and punching. So thanks again, guys. Please train today so that you can protect tomorrow. I will catch you guys in the next episode.
