It's Perfectly Okay
The closest I’ve ever come to watching a man die was on April 1st, 1996, when I watched a man die.
It was a year removed from the labor strike that ruined baseball for me forever—on second thought, maybe baseball ruined baseball for me forever—in the top of the first inning of the Cincinnati Reds’ home opener, when veteran home plate umpire John McSherry stopped play, signaled something to the 2nd base umpire, turned towards the dugout as if to leave, and collapsed, never to get up again, after experiencing what we’d learn later was a massive heart attack. They’d try the game again the next day and we’d happily make the short drive back down from Dayton to see it, this time with plenty to talk about and a couple of lasting memories.
The first was of my friend Zach.
All you really need to know about Zach was that he had a habit of buying the largest pop imaginable whenever we’d go to a movie or sporting event and would invariably end up having to pee during all the good parts. This day was no different. At the time the postponement was announced, Zach was returning to his seat with the largest cup of hot chocolate I’ve ever seen, having done a rather poor job of keeping it from spilling all over his hands and burning him as he maneuvered down the steps and around railings at Riverfront Stadium. This became my lasting impression of him, and though he’d go on to get a masters degree in chemistry from Michigan State, he’d forever remain the kid who always had to pee a gallon of sugar water to me.
And then, obviously, there was the whole “guy dying” thing.
Maybe McSherry meant something more to people at the game who were older than 13—after all, he had officiated the World Series game in ‘77 where Reggie Jackson hit three home runs in three swings among countless other classics—but to me, and indeed, to Major League Baseball going forward, he was the 400 pound man who died with a horrified look on his face in front of 40,000 people. After a necessary period of league-wide mourning had subsided, the league put new physical fitness and training guidelines in place to prevent something like this from every happening again.
In the first thing I ever wrote for this site back in June, I said:
Though the benefits may appear self-evident, it’s worth asking anyway: Why would anyone want to be healthy? And just what do I mean when I say, “being healthy is not about you?”
Perhaps it’s best to think of being healthy as a practice that allows us to be dependable, which may just be the ultimate consideration to anyone who has to put up with us on a day-to-day basis. But more than that, being healthy is about being there for your loved ones (even those that don’t yet exist) and being as little a burden as possible to them as you get older.
If the philosophical approach doesn’t do it for you, consider this metaphor. When you buy a new car, you expect it to degrade gracefully over time; You don’t expect the engine to just fall out one day. In essence, this is exactly what the people in your life expect out of you. Don’t be the grandparent that spends the last 10 years of their life in bed hoping for a visit; be the one that does the visiting.
(Notice, for a moment, that I’ve made it this far in our discussion of what it means to be healthy without touching on “looking good” or “feeling good.” That’s because looking and feeling good are the rewards for being healthy, not the reasons. Being healthy because you want to look good is like playing youth soccer because you like eating orange slices.)
I also mentioned the fact that I once lost 45% of my body weight, something I don’t usually talk about unless I think it will help someone better understand my character flaws. Well, full disclosure time: I didn’t lose weight for the Right Reasons. I did it because I didn’t want diabetes, which I have to say is a pretty solid reason to be healthy. I did it because I saw a guy die from standing there once.
I’m pleased to say that I’ve since loosened my guidelines.
It is perfectly okay if the only reason you want to be healthy is to not be the guy grunting and out of breath at the men’s room urinal.
It is perfectly okay if the only reason you want to be healthy is to fit into a $500 pair of skinny jeans.
It is perfectly okay if the only reason you want to be healthy is to avoid being written about by some a-hole on his blog that nobody reads.
Those are all perfectly okay reasons.
