Cherishing Connections Before It's Too Late

They've passed , they've moved on , and it is a really interesting time because it is when I feel the clumsiest , and so if you've ever felt awkward or judged or critiqued about the way you respond or deal to losing people , to people passing on , maybe you can relate to this and if not , maybe the people that you don't understand .

Maybe this will give you some insight . Total and complete jerk . And I want to be super clear . Like I know , what I'm experiencing is nothing near what the family and loved ones of those individuals is experiencing .

There's no doubt in my mind that that is a heavy load , and there's a whole bunch of other people out there that have the loss and they're grieving in the ways that they grieve , and I think that's kind of the key point here is that we all process grief at different rates and in different ways and , you know , often I feel like , oh , my goodness , okay ,

these people meant a lot to me . I do care deeply and I'm just guarding myself for the inevitable comment dang you're cold , dang you're heartless . Do you even care . That usually comes because I'm not crying , I'm not distraught . That doesn't mean I don't care . I do care , I really care for those people .

But the way I process that , the way it looks externally , is probably just not the norm . And that's not to cast any judgment on anybody , except to say that I think I process it a little differently and my thinking through people passing on kind of comes from losing somebody that I cared about deeply when I was in seventh grade .

Now , in that situation , I was a seventh grader . I had never lost a friend . That was my age and that was . That was quite an experience . The pain for me came from her not being there anymore and I understand all the intellectual , rational , logical thinking . They're in a better place and you know what , straight up , I don't care .

I want them here with me . It's a little selfish , but that's what I feel . I don't want them to be gone . I don't really care where they're at . They're not with me , they're not available to me , I can't see them . They're gone and that's not cool . But it is life Now .

The other thing with my friend that passed away back when , is I never told her how I felt ? Is I never told her how I felt . I actually spent a whole lot of time and energy hiding my real feelings for her . Even today it still hurts me , that regret Like the regret never goes away . I never , ever , told her exactly what I thought .

I put in effort to hide it and I'll never get the chance to tell her again . Sure , some people will say , yes , you can , and she's up there .

Yeah , I know , because of fear , because of insecurity , because of cowardice , whatever , that I hid my feelings for her and I should have told her , and so that's kind of the foundation of how or maybe that's how I started learning how to process grief . Now , back then it was I took a really unhealthy way about it .

But now , when people leave , like on the serious note , there's a few questions that I ask myself . The first question is did I help them understand how they have contributed to my life ? Did I let them know what I thought ?

Did I give them my honest , straight up observations Maybe those uncomfortable things that other people won't tell them because it's not polite and did I contribute in some way to their path ?

Those are the questions that run through my head , because I know from that first experience that if I have more no's than yes's , I'm going to be carrying regret for me going forward , and I don't get yes's all the time right , because you know , I'm in the season I'm of the age where my friend's parents are going to be passing my friends .

I've lost several friends here recently and it is a truth , it is a reality .

Every single human being I know is going to die , and because we know that we can choose to celebrate and engage in a manner that is regret proof , and so maybe that's what I'm suggesting to y'all and I appreciate y'all kind of listening to me ramble here on this one , because it's a personal , real situation .

But how can I react , interact with people so that I live a regret-proof life ? Back to the questions that I asked myself right , did I let them know the influence they had on my life ? Now I'm going to tell you some of my personal friends .

When I tell them how they've influenced me , it's always they're like , oh , slow down bro , like you're doing too much . But I got to tell them , I have to tell them how they've influenced me , what they said , what they challenged me with , what value they brought into my life and how it's going to impact me going forward . I do it with a high regularity .

That's part of my regret-proof lifestyle , if you will , and you know I think they like it . Like it may be a little bit uncomfortable After a while , they get used to it and they kind of know that . I'm just kind of going to show some feelings and let them know exactly how I feel and extremely specific about how they're contributing to my life .

I think it's important to let people know what they've done that inspires you , that's helped you to grow . Because they don't know and you will be surprised how many times people have said like I didn't really do anything . Like , yeah , you did . Like you gave me a reason to keep waking up .

Uh , or you helped me take that extra step , uh , you helped me transform my life and that helped transform other people's lives . And we have that influence and impact on people . And so being explicit and taking any opportunity I can to let people know how they've influenced my life is one of those regret-proofing behaviors .

The other thing is , it's very close , it's like in the same bucket , but it's not exactly the same thing is did I tell them how I feel about them ?

And sometimes , rather most of the times , that's a matter of , like my observations , the things that I see that they're doing , that maybe they're not representing themselves in the best way , or that they're slacking off , or you know , if I have an opinion about somebody or a thought about somebody based on a disconnection between their words and their actions and

they're important to me , I'm compelled to tell them what that is , because in my head , in Jesse land here , if I don't tell them , I have very high confidence that no one else is going to tell them . Otherwise , why are they continuing to do it ? So I just give them the benefit of the doubt in that no one has told them about these things .

And what kind of a friend am I if I'm not going to help them , like , if I'm not going to hold the mirror up to them and let them know that what they're doing ain't cool and it ain't all right ? Or , on the other hand , when I see them doing amazing , monumental things that they're maybe not aware of or taking for granted , I got to let them know .

So I have to let them know what I see . There's been times when I didn't do that and I seen it played out in really bad ways . At other times I didn't do that and I seen it played out in really bad ways . At other times I didn't say how amazing or impactful or thoughtful or whatever my thought of them was , and they kept playing small .

They didn't , they never had even a glimpse of the magnitude of the human being that they actually were , and and I'm not okay with that , like I have to tell them . And so telling them , telling my people , what I think about them , is another one of those behaviors that helped me regret , proof , my life .

And then , lastly , I asked like did I contribute into their path ? What significant step like ? What did I actually do ? Did I have that thought and did I take action on it ? Did I share some insight ? What did I do that helped them on their path to becoming the promise they are intended to be ?

There's tons of opportunities to do that and they're not always welcome , right ?

Sometimes you're like you need to back off , like I can't go that fast , I'm not really that interested in the thing , but it's really a question of did I make the attempt to contribute to their path , to share my specific gifts , unique talents and so forth , to help them thrive or experience an enhanced quality of life ? Did I do that yes or no .

And that's a very easy yes or no , and that one's probably the easier one to get yeses on because all I got to do is try . Right , there's not a lot of vulnerability . I can try and they can like .

Sometimes they don't even know that I'm trying , but I need to know that I did that and when I know that I've done that , then I have less regret in my life . And so we started talking about how we grieve and how we deal with loss , how we deal with people moving on to the next phase .

If you believe there's one or whatever In my head , like this is going to sound really bad , but for real , this is what I think . Like I'm a little jealous .

They're gone , like they don't have to worry about the damn election , they don't have to worry about all the drama on social media , they don't have to worry about bills , taxes , like they don't have to suffer anymore .

I mean some of my friends that are still here and some that have passed , like they're carrying some , dealing with some really , really heavy stuff , and now that they're gone they can rest . And I think that's a beautiful idea , that they're not suffering anymore . And I'm a little bit mad at them because I'm stuck here suffering with the rest of us .

So , you know , I feel kind of celebrate a little bit , right , that they had an impact here . They're chilling while we're still here dealing with stuff , but I think it's helping me see , and thank you for listening because , if you can't tell , I'm kind of processing through my thoughts and my emotions about this Grieving for people .

I think for me looks different because I have these regret-proof behaviors in my life . I mean , I hope that's true . Right , it is very possible that I'm suppressing feelings and intellectualizing my emotions , but I don't think that's true .

I really think that we have so many opportunities to celebrate each other , like for real , for real , right , I'm not talking about thumbs up and smiley faces on the damn socials .

I'm talking about having a straight up eye contact conversation with somebody and letting them know how they've impacted your life and what you think about them and what you feel about them and really just operating in a way that you don't leave things unsaid the loving , meaningful things , the the rough , harsh things .

If we could just share that kind of reality with people , our experience together would be so rich and we won't have anything to cry about when they're gone be cool , and we'll talk at you next time . Peace .