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Have you heard of an app called “We Croak?”
I hadn’t until a friend described it to me. It’s an app that exists to remind you, five times every day, that you’re going to die. You get an alert at unexpected times, at unexpected intervals, that simply tells you in different ways that some day you will die.
My first thought was, “Oh my god, who the hell wants THAT in their life?” Then I read a little about the impact it has had on people, and I have to say… I kind of get it.
The app says its goal is to remind you of your mortality, to take deep breaths, meditate, contemplate the beauty of NOT being dead, and be present in your life right here, right now.
I still was thinking I did not need to sign up to be reminded of that, that it is so morbid that I couldn’t see how that could possibly be beneficial. It’s the ultimate Debbie Downer, five times per day, where you’re cruising through your lunch break when your phone buzzes to tell you that you will be worm food some day.
But a little later in the day, my 7-year-old was doing what 7-year-olds do sometimes, which is stand outside the bathroom while I was taking a shower and yell “Dad, dad, dad, dad, dad!” until I stopped the shower and get out to make sure the house wasn’t on fire.
Then she asked, “Hey, can you get me a cup of chocolate milk?”
I felt my lips squeeze together and I wanted to yell at her… then I remembered the We Croak thing and it had a weirdly helpful impact on me.
The more I thought about it, the more I realized what the concept of “You know you’re doing to die some day?” has on me: perspective. It gives me perspective. At this stage in my sobriety, I rarely crave drugs and alcohol. It’s not an obsession for me any more.
But I do lose perspective on a regular basis. Think about the last three times you’ve been really, really irritated. How many of those times can you look back and think maybe you overreacted a bit? Maybe you took that email or off-handed comment or the dog s**t in your yard a little bit too personally?
I know that’s the case with me. It doesn’t take much for me to be cruising along having a nice day and then be totally distracted and obsessed with something else. It happens a lot with kids. I have two teenagers, and they routinely will get really mad about something and stomp out of the room.
Is my first thought, “Hey, teenagers have it pretty tough in the world, and my teenagers are actually amazing kids who are kind and get good grades and treat people well”? No, it is not.
So perspective can go right out the window with the smallest nudge. I get to about four meetings a week right now, and I always have good perspective coming out of meetings. I always heard the saying that if you went to a big recovery meeting and everybody put their problems in the middle of the room, you’d usually end up taking yours back and being happy about it. That’s how I often feel.
I thought long and hard about whether to get the We Croak app and whether it would help me. I think it probably would… but I’m going to hold off for now. I have teenagers who yell at me enough. I think I can live without my phone yelling at me that I am going to die five times every day!
This newsletter is a place of joy and laughter about the deadly serious business of sobriety. So, as I will often do, let me close with a joke:
A young newcomer attended an AA meeting where the topic was "to practice these principles in all our affairs."
When the discussion came around to her, she said, "I have never had an affair, so I am going to pass."
(Credit: AA Grapevine, November 2007, by Lee S. of Phoenix, Arizona)
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