Self-Inflicted Wounds

I don't sleep much, averaging around five hours a night; arthritis in the shoulders and metal in the lower back see to that. As Dick Marcincko said in one of his books, 'Pain lets you know you're still alive.'

Awakening to this reminder of life at 0430, I made my usual breakfast of oatmeal (containing a tablespoon of peanut butter) and a non-fat yogurt, to go along with my Tim Horton's black gold, and retired to the recliner to browse the TV menu.

'Destroyed In Seconds' on Discovery caught my attention; this show depicts all sorts of disasters and accidents caught on video, so this would be my breakfast entertainment. Hey, it beats reading the back of the oatmeal box, right?

I was struck, while watching, by the number of avoidable incidents the show depicted. Things like earthquakes and hurricanes happen, you can't prevent them, but the number of people hurt by performing less-than-intelligent, unnecessary stunts was dumbfounding. That's saying something, coming from a guy who spent 31 years dealing with the public's problems.

For instance, the guy performing stunts on his motorcycle on a public highway as his buddy rides behind him, filming. He lost control in a high-speed wobble, went down and slammed into a car parked on the berm, all caught on tape. He suffered a broken arm and spine, but he survived.

The amateur stunt rider was lucky, though he suffered a painful price; others in the program weren't as fortunate.

It got me to thinking about the title of the program and how it can apply to events in our lives; a moment of pleasure or daring destroying our lives, literally in seconds. Allowing external influences to overcome our common sense, we have often made straight-out dumb moves or judgements. Some of those can do or has done irreparable damage, either physically, emotionally or both.

Though my life wasn't destroyed, Lord knows I've made my fair share of short-sighted, spur-of-the-moment decisions, most of them when I was a younger man. Its by the grace of God I am even here to realize those facts. For instance, my cousin and I thought it would be a good idea to walk out to the middle of a twin-tracked railroad bridge spanning the Ohio River; we discovered an access ladder that led down to the top of the central support buttress, about ten feet below the rail support timbers. That's where we were when a 100-car coal train rolled by mere feet above our heads, shaking the entire structure so badly I was sure it would come apart and throw us to certain death into the river a hundred feet below.

There's an excuse for that one, though, albeit weak: I was 14 years old. Kids and teens don't see danger nearly as well as adults, but that little trek could easily have cost us our lives. I told my parents about that one thirty-five years after the fact; Mom still wanted to take a belt to me.

The worst of the wounds we cause aren't the ones to ourselves, though, but rather to those we love. I've been on both ends of that scenario and, in both incidences, the emotional pain was just as intense as any physical pain could have been. Somewhere along the lines of both alcohol was involved.

I stopped drinking a long time ago, one of the best decisions of my life. The pain I had been causing to both myself and those I cared about was destructive. I took care of me first, which also took care of those close to me and, as a by-product, terminated other problems. Unfortunately, when the other side of a partnership refuses to acknowledge that a significant issue exists in their life, you can't fix it for them. They're far too busy revelling in their imagined glory to really take a look at themselves and see it.

What do you do? You move on. Impulsive behavior, in most cases, is going to cause damage somewhere in your life or someone else's, either immediately or down the road. Damage that appears later will always be at an unexpected time. Believe me on this one; experience is a great teacher.

Learn from your mistakes. Listen to those who have gone through some tough times of their own making.

STOP hurting yourself.