How I Learned To Let Go

No matter who you are or what you do, stress can get the best of you. I developed an approach to life that allowed me to handle stressful situations. I just ask myself, "one year from today, is this going to matter in your life?" That mantra has served me well over the years. However, the lesson that taught me that phrase was so traumatic that I almost didn’t survive the experience.

There was one time when something flew into my ear and dug into my brain, where it laid eggs and infected me with a thought devouring virus that I just couldn't shake. Sometimes you hear something so profound that it shakes the foundation of your world. People have often spoke of being moved by a single, life altering phrase.

“I am no longer accepting the things I cannot change. I am changing the things I cannot accept.” Angela Y. Davis

“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” - Nelson Mandela

“The measure of intelligence is the ability to change.“ - Albert Einstein

“You can’t start the next chapter of your life if you keep reading the last one.” - Unknown

These are the kinds of quotes that can help shape your worldview, motivate you to be the best version of yourself, form your personal mantra. If you are fortunate enough to hear a quote of this nature, I hope that you really think about the implications of what is being said. These are not just motivational phrases to be digested and then discarded, like a gas station candy bar. These are the kind of quotes we should all take to heart and try to implement into our daily lives. If we all live by these words, we can make this world a better place.

What did I hear that affected me so greatly? If these quotes, some of the greatest of all time, did not set me down a new path in life, the one I heard must have been so profound it could have been a wellspring for an entire new branch of philosophy. What did I hear that was so incredibly life altering that it irrevocably changed the course of my destiny?

“So you see, zombies can get diarrhea!”

I should probably back up.

I have spent my entire adult life working in a warehouse. We sell groceries to supermarkets, and as a result, there are tons of drivers in and out of the building on a daily basis making deliveries. Some are regulars who work for local supplies and I see them several times a week. Others are long haul truckers who drive cross country and I will only encounter once. It was the latter who uttered this universe shattering phrase.

I was walking quickly across the warehouse. There was an issue with a load of avocadoes and I needed to sign off on the rejection. I am ordinarily pulled in several directions at once and a sense of urgency is one of my greatest assets as a member of the management team. As I was hustling past two drivers deep in conversation, I I distinctly heard one of them say to the other, “So you see, zombies can get diarrhea!”

At first, it didn’t even register. But as I made my way to the avocado load, the reality of what I had just heard permeated my brain and it was like a switch had been thrown inside of me. As if on instant replay, my brain rewound to a minute prior and replayed what I had heard. This time, it was like thunder.

“So you see, zombies can get diarrhea!”

What a peculiar thing to say. However, as strange as the phrase “zombies can get diarrhea” was to me, it wasn’t the weirdest thing about that sentence. Somebody stating that zombies can get diarrhea is not normal, but people have all kinds of bizarre theories. No, the part that stopped me in my tracks was not the undead and their intestinal issues. The part that stuck out to me, and would haunt me going forward, was the “so you see.”

Three simple words. “So you see.” Three ordinary, everyday words. You would be hard pressed to find a more harmless phrase than “so you see.” But it was that phrase that sent me teetering on the edge of madness and then pushed me over the edged.

The thing about the “so you see” in the begging on the phrase “So you see, zombies can get diarrhea!” was not the words itself, but the implication that went along with them. “so you see” implies that this was not just a random tidbit of information this driver needed to randomly drop on his fellow trucker. That “so you see” means that he had initially presented his theory about zombies and their digestive struggles and the other man had balked at this new data. Then the man with the zombie theory had presented ample evidence to prove his case. This is where the “can” comes in. I have to point out that he emphasized this word with such an air of confidence that he had 100% certainty that his argument could not be refuted. He said it with finality. He was more sure of himself in that moment than I have ever been in my entire life. What argument had he made, backed up with such irrefutable facts that there was no chance in Hell that the other man could ever hope to convince that zombies could not, in fact, get diarrhea?

As I signed off on the avocado rejection, my brain could not stop exploring this conversation. What had this man said that made him so sure that zombies could get diarrhea? Why was he so sure? Were there no arguments to be made that had any scientific validity to sway him? How had he presented this data? The way he said it, with such force of will, I got the impression that he had presented well researched information on the subject. In fact, I instantly pictured him showing his conversation partner a power point presentation that he had saved on his phone in case he had to prove his case.

And why were they discussing this in the first place? Try as I might, I could not think of a single conversation starter that would cause two men to discuss something that would eventually lead to the phrase “So you see, zombies can get diarrhea!”

Had the man initially brought this up? Had the second man doubted him, only to met with a mountain of evidence that shook his belief on the ability of shambling mounds of rotting flesh to get the squirts? Or had the subject first been broached by the second man? Had they been discussing something that led him to say, “There’s one thing I know about zombies, and that’s that they cannot get diarrhea.” Did this cause the first man’s eyes to light up, sensing his moment in the spotlight had finally come, and to pronounce, “you fool! They absolutely can!” At this point he brought forth waves of evidence to prove his point, finishing with the titanic proclamation “So you see, zombies can get diarrhea!”

This was all that I thought about for the rest of the day. And the rest of the restless night. I couldn’t get this sentence out of my mind. I called out of work the next day, not able to focus on anything else. I didn’t care about work. I didn’t eat. I didn’t sleep. “So you see, zombies can get diarrhea!” kept repeating over and over in my brain, an earworm I couldn’t shake no matter what. Why were they discussing this? I needed to know.

I launched into research mode. The first thing I had to ascertain was whether or not zombies could, in fact, get diarrhea. I looked into their diet of brains, and the rate at which intestines decomposed. I read every zombie novel I could find, watched all the movies and TV shows. I needed to decide if all zombies were the same. Did the same rules apply to the slow walking shambling variety as to the more quickly moving versions of recent years. Also, were mummies zombies? What was the difference? Could mummies also get diarrhea? If so, those bandages would certainly come in handy.

Zombies and their digestive processes became my obsession. I have a vague memory of a crying baby and a stressed out woman pleading for me to stop. Was this my family? I think I had a family at one point. However, if I did, they were taking up too much space in the memory banks of my brain, so I had to delete them to make room for more research on the bowel movements of the living dead.

I do remember the day that things finally turned around. Apparently if you don’t show up to work for three weeks straight, they do what’s called a Wellness Check to see if you’re still alive. I had been hunched over a copy of World War Z, rereading it for the fifth time trying to find some overlooked clue that would unlock the answers for me. I have phantom memories of a banging at my door before it was shattered by police. They tried to talk to me, but I didn’t have time for them. I needed answers. I attempted to fight them off, flinging DVDs of the Walking Dead in their direction to hold them off, but they eventually subdued me. Dehydrated and sleep deprived, I tried to shout out, but my voice had left me days ago. They dragged me out of the house and brought me to the hospital, where I was restrained and pumped full of nutrients. Under a doctor’s care, my strength was returning.

At least my physical strength.

My mind was still held captive, held in the icy grip of that mystery. The phrase “So you see, zombies can get diarrhea!” taunted me. It hovered around the outer recesses of my mind, it’s origins unknown and perhaps unknowable.

I was pleading with my therapist to let me continue my quest for clarity. No matter how much I begged, nobody at the hospital would let me do anything zombie related. Once, on Halloween, they were showing Night of the Living Dead, and they had to transfer me across town to another hospital after three orderlies couldn’t keep me out of the viewing. I felt like I couldn’t continue with my life. All I cared about was why this conversation between two truckers I had never seen before and would never see again had taken place.

Finally, the therapist looked at me and asked why it was so important to me to know. It was a question I had been asked daily since my incarceration in the asylum. I would try to explain it, but as my brain was so preoccupied with zombie facts, I did not retain enough capacity to articulate my thoughts. It was at this point that the therapist asked me, “One year from today, is this going to matter in your life?”

It was like all of the zombie diarrhea stuff had built a dam around my brain and anything unrelated was the water held at bay. But that one phrase had managed to punch a hole through that dam and suddenly the rest of life came flooding back into my mind.

What would happen if I never figured it out a year from now?

Nothing.

It didn’t matter.

And that was how I formed my new philosophy. Any time I am presented with a stressful situation, I take a deep breath, I count to ten, and then I ask myself, “One year from today, is this going to matter in your life?”