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Getting Past What Holds You Back with Baby Boomer Weight Loss Expert Scott 'Q' Marcus

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I Lost Another Friend This Week

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The ability to cope with loss is one of the most important life-skills we need as we age.

Bluntly put, either we die or those around us will die. If we go first, it doesn’t really much matter (at least to us). Yet that’s not the preferred option. Therefore, the longer we live, the more loved ones we will lose. If we cannot cope, we shrivel.

I don’t need to tell you that, especially in a year like this one.

Although you and I might appear to follow different trails, we’re actually traveling the same path. You’ve had losses. I’ve had losses. It’s a sad part of the universal human experience. With life, comes death; ain’t no way around it. Said new-thought singer Jana Stanfield in her song I’m not lost, I am Exploring, “All of us are headed for the same destination/ So why not blaze travel that’s got imagination.”

I’m now closer to 100 than I am to 30, and this is not as old as I plan to be.

So, I must look ahead and plan for what those future days will be like.

To do so, I – most likely as do you – look for inspiration from those with wisdom; in action, thought, or deed. My preferred role models have altered over the decades. When younger, with life stretched out in front of me, an unending highway vanishing over a far-away horizon; I sought career advice from those successfully earning their way in my field of choice, radio. Wanting a relationship, I took a seat at the feet of many successful in their pairings, querying them as to how they met, how they knew they were right for each other, and what kept them together.

In order not to live in fear at this age, I’ve now taken to looking for older role models; men who are healthy and active well into their later years. Over time, I’ve been inspired by Dick Van Dyke, Mel Brooks, George Bush Sr., and Jimmy Carter. (The difficulty I’m running into woefully is that the older I get, the fewer men I can find who are a few decades older than me.) Politics aside, these men show(ed) zest for life continuing to appear to welcome in each morning. By the way, they lead their lives, they sweep away doubt and fear for those who follow. They’re not perfect. They’re probably not fearless either. But it doesn’t matter. As Jack Nicholson said to Helen Hunt in As Good As It Gets, “You make me want to be a better man.”

Last week, one of my local role models, Everett Henkle, passed on.

Right up until he passed, Everett remained active. He had to be ordered to rest. Even in his eighties, he kayaked; worked to clean up our local highways, and volunteered at every event we conducted at the Center for Spiritual Living. He was first in line to move tables, sweep floors, mow lawns, or just hang with you and talk. Energizer bunny? Meet your human counterpart.

But it’s not just about how much one can accomplish. I was drawn to his joie de vivre  — he was upbeat, aware, and engaging. (He also had great taste; he loved to read this column.) Finally, although he and his wife, Ruth, were a couple of decades older than my wife and me; seeing them together inspired us because we saw that “getting up there” didn’t mean romance must end.

I don’t want to paint a false image. Everett and I didn’t get together for coffee or go out to a movie or march in protests together. Truth be told, outside of events associated with the Center, the only other times I saw him were accidental; maybe if we bumped into each other in the store or something similar.

See, but that’s the thing. One doesn’t have to hang out with one’s role models in order to learn and be inspired. It’s their energy, the way they approach their lives, it’s their attitudes that speak to us. Being around them lifts us up.

Everett did that for me. I am more than I was and I am more hopeful because I knew him.

Possibly the saddest thing is on a Sunday morning when I’d greet him at the entrance to the Sanctuary, he’d say, “Another good column Scott.”

I hope I did you proud Everett. Thank you for being in my life.

About the author: Scott “Q” Marcus is a professional speaker and founder of www.ThisTimeIMeanIt.com, where he can be contacted for coaching, consulting, and presentations. During this social distancing period, he is conducting monthly on-line workshops on setting goals and getting past what holds you back. You can find out more at www.ThisTimeIMeanIt.com/intentions

 

She Attended Over 100 Funerals – And Found Life

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I am delivering a eulogy of a close friend this week.

I know it’s an honor; albeit one I’d prefer not to have. Instead of standing in front of a room commemorating the accomplishments and celebrating his life, I’d rather be talking with him over lunch at the Marina. Alas, ‘tis not a choice. We take what’s given.

According to statistics, the average 40-year-old will have attended ten funerals by that age.

Of course, it increases where – if you’re so fortunate to celebrate your 90th tour around the sun, you will attend no fewer than 50. I guess that makes me “lucky” in some fashion, since I can count those I’ve attended on one hand.

Although not backed by data that I could find, I assume most people attend memorials as a tribute to the one who passed, as a means to support the family, and/or as a ritual of closure. I highly doubt – with the exception of the two primary characters in the 1971 dark comedy, Harold and Maude – anyone attends because they enjoy it.

We do what we can to avoid them; very few of us have what it takes to continually be subjected to so many painful losses.

Until not too long ago, I would have said that none of us do.

That was prior to meeting a middle-aged foster mother from the South.

[Read more…]

The Gentle Giant has Fallen

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James Hoff didn’t give up without a fight on anything.

So, when he told me that he was accepting hospice care, I knew he had given it everything he had.

“Jim” (which is what everyone who knew him called him) moved on last Sunday to whatever is next for his powerful, loving, large, expressive Spirit. He was 68. He was as large in life as he was in build, referencing his colossal stature as “five feet 17 inches.”

James

photograph courtesy of Mike Jones

To call him a “close friend” does not do justice to our relationship.

Although having moved to Texas several years ago, he remained my mentor, buddy, confidant, and sometime political sparring partner. He was the big brother I never had.

With the exception of direct family, Jim’s loss hits more harshly than any of the others I’ve written about over the last 14 years. Although relieved that he has been released of the suffering of his final months, I am saddened beyond words over the void left in many lives. Today the sun shines, yet light fails to penetrate. [Read more…]

Walking a Minefield: Tribute to Friend

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It’s been said the difference between depression and grief is that the former seduces, while the latter attacks.

Whether it’s delivered by phone, direct conversation, email, or – ever more prevalent these days – via social media; the effects remain the same. Word blasts you in the solar plexus as a surprising sucker punch. A tsunami of shock flooding away whatever thoughts had been active the instant prior, blood rushes from your head, you stagger slightly, and then the awful reality of the moment clamps itself firmly on to your psyche, a rabid dog unwilling to let go.

Shake it as you might, the jaws of grief hold tightly; the only effective tools to pry loose its pincers are acceptance of this new horrific, hurting actuality; and patience, allowing time to apply — however slowly — its healing salve.

Looking back on the twisted road that to date has been my life’s journey, one of the main thoroughfares on which I’ve traveled has been my involvement in the media.

Starting as a college DJ at UCLA, I spent decades on the air and behind the scenes, eventually ending up as a media coordinator and consultant (among other jobs). There was an expression among “air personalities” back then: “You can tell the success of a disc jockey by the size of the trailer attached to his car.” Between the years of 1977 and the early eighties, I had no fewer than nine addresses. Tribes of nomads were we, wayfaring across this vast land, U-hauls in tow, pursuing larger audiences and higher wattage, mostly in pursuit of the Holy Grail of prime time on a clear-channel 50,000-watt blowtorch.

Some found it. Most took a detour — as did I, ending up on the Northcoast of California in 1983 to program an AM/FM combo. My original plan? Stay among the redwoods for a few years before moving to the bay area, intent on afternoon drive on KFRC. Should 35 be labeled as “a few years,” there’s still time. (Of course, KFRC has been gone since 2005 so there is that.)

Over the last 24 hours, I’ve heard distressing news about two of the tent posts of my life for these last three-plus decades.

One of my closest friends has been fighting cancer. Recently, he was told there was nothing left to do, “Go home and live your life as well as you can.” I fear that a future column will pay tribute to him.

Yet, today, I awoke to find out that Pete Meyer, morning personality on Power 96 in Eureka, passed away shockingly, suddenly, without foretoken.

It’s appropriate that as I write this, gray clouds suffocate our sky line, embracing the melancholy that this community now collectively bears.

If you don’t live among the towering titan trees and rocky coasts in Humboldt county, I’ll bet you know someone like Pete.

[Read more…]

Dealing with Loss

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A relative of mine died recently.

Aside from the sadness and sense of loss, death puts a mirror of our own mortality to our faces. As we age, learning to deal with the grim reaper becomes a bigger and bigger issue.

I have to admit, I don’t get – nor like – this “death thing,” so I seek denial that it could be me next.

I’m convinced he began that morning as he did so many others, yet that day ended so horribly different. Surely, there must have been a warning; a sign, giving him room to avoid the outcome. I look for understanding, a meaning, solace. I’m embarrassed to say I even blame him for not avoiding it; maybe he set himself up for it. Understand, I am trying to do something – anything – to avoid the reality that I, Scott Marcus, 62 years on planet Earth, writer, speaker, friend of many, father of two, lover of one, just might not have all the tomorrows I need either. We convince ourselves that there is always another sunrise over the horizon. Yet, as my grandmother said so many times, “Tomorrow never comes.”

When fear goes unchallenged, it becomes cement, weighing heavily on our souls; we hunch down our shoulders and grovel in whisper-like tones to the Universe. As Oliver Twist said, holding his now empty bowl of gruel, with a voice tiny and meek, “Please sir, more…” We hold out frail trembling hands and beg for more time, unsure we are deserving but wanting and needing it so desperately. I’ll be good. Please don’t take it away from me.

During however many revolutions around the Sun we have, we are essentially faced with one main choice: embrace love or cower in fright.

After all, we each begin and end this journey in the same fashion; traveling similar paths; ups, downs, lots of middles. How we view ourselves and that passage is what really makes the difference.

Yet it’s not easy to shut off the panic, and as much as I don’t like it, I guess it is okay to be frightened.

[Read more…]

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Scott "Q" Marcus 707 834.4090 scottq@thistimeimeanit.com

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