Author's Note (IMPORTANT!): Welcome. I please ask that before we begin, you watch the video link provided, as it will play an important role in the story. The video will only take two minutes of your time, and I also please ask that you watch it when you're relaxed and able to be in the moment, so you can mindfully observe any thoughts and feelings that naturally arise. If you are at school or work, or somewhere you'll be distracted, I kindly ask that you wait and find a time that fits more appropriately, perhaps before bed or early in the morning, where you'll be able to have your full interpretation of the footage. The video captures pictures of postcards from the 1960s and what they look like today, which created sensations within me that are very hard to explain, but I believe I may have come to some philosophical answers after extended research and self-reflection on prior life experiences. Enjoy the story.

https://youtu.be/C7zXKcXK1DU

          Okay. Assuming you've read the author's note and watched the video, let's take a quick check-in before diving into things. Scan your body briefly and notice for any tight spots. What are you feeling right now? What sensations are arising? Remember, there is no right or wrong answer here—everyone is going to be different in the way they perceive things. Maybe some of you are surprised. Maybe some of you are sad. And maybe some of you might be happy. Again, there's no right answer.

          But for me, personally, I have never had a piece of art or anything like that affect me the way those photos did. The teenage pop music in the background seemed to go along nicely, too—at least to me—but also left feelings inside me that I can only recall having a scarce amount of times in life. It was so hard to describe, which has led to the telling of this story. I sensed an overwhelming feeling of sadness and emptiness roar within me, but more than anything, a complete loss of control.

          I started to panic at the realization of what I was witnessing. My whole body flooded with waves of anxiety, as my brain desperately tried to hold on to any self-created beliefs I had about myself and the world as we've come to know it. It had come to my attention, right then and there, that the exact same things were going to happen to us one day. We're all going to grow old and die. Death from old age is simply inescapable, no matter how much we may deny or try to avoid it. No one has ever found a cure for death, and no one ever will. This isn't just a belief or an opinion. This is a FACT. You. Will. Die.

          For some of us, we have come to accept this, and place it in the back of our mind for later when that time eventually comes. For others, this can be deeply unsettling, and understandably so. Nobody knows what it feels like to die. No one has ever come back from the dead to write a book or tell a movie about their experience. The uncertainty of the unknown can be overwhelming at times. To die would be like to be born again—we simply wouldn't be able to remember any of it.

          Little did I know at the time, that what I was experiencing while watching the video is known as ego death. Or as others may call, a spiritual awakening. I mostly learned this through my smoking of cannabis and usage of psychedelic drugs and meditation, but also through a dense amount of research and self-reflection (of course, while I was high). It is our ego that defines who and what we are, how and when we say. To not have an ego would almost be like to not have a brain. And to not have a brain would be like to not have a soul. Everything from my past, from my very first blink of life, to that very second, for a brief moment, was all numbed out. I was in a state of absolutely zero control.

          Now, compared to other experiences I would have in the future, this was only a smaller ego death, but it was still enough to shake me up and be forever planted in the back of my mind. After I eventually settled down, as my ego began to gradually return, I thought more about how and why I'd experienced these events. It gave me great fear to have no control over my thoughts and feelings. It was something I didn't wish to experience in the future. Little did I know that it would have a great impact on my overall happiness and outlook on life itself.

          Naturally, we don't like to feel anxiety. But sometimes there is good anxiety that it is important we experience so we can live a rich and meaningful life. That is why we must be aware of the fact that our lifespan is limited. The average human being spends 27,375 days on planet earth. Day by day, night after night, these events ever so gradually count down. Quite literally, as you read this story right now, with every passing second, the metaphorical timer of your life is microscopically running out, and there's nothing you can do to stop it.

          There are many things in life that we cannot control. We can't control what the weather will be like. We can't control that February comes after January. And for the most part, we can't control what others do and think. There are, however, some things you can control. One of them being the fact that we can focus, in a positive manner, that yes, we are going to die one day. The reason why this is a positive thing is because it will help motivate us to get out and make the most of our time.

          The saying goes: If you could live forever, would you? Now some of us might answer yes to this question. But as the human life cycle goes, this is simply not the case. When we experience ego death, we are living in a state of hyper-awareness. Hyper-awareness forces us to focus on things that wouldn't normally catch our attention span. We begin to realize how damaging our negative self-talk is to our overall well-being, and we take note of all the things we took for granted in the past.

          Simple things, too, like eating a meal or drinking a glass of fresh water. Or all the people we are thankful for in our lives. Ego death forces us, even if we attempt to resist, to reach a higher consciousness. And that's what I did for many years of my life—resist the process of ego death. I did this out of one simple reason: fear. My negative and self-limited beliefs had rooted so deep within me that I was refusing to change, even if it meant I would continue to suffer internally.

          Now why would someone do this to themselves? Wouldn't they be aware of their own self-sabotage and want to change? This all goes back to our ego. 

          When I first started smoking cannabis as a late teenager, I was using it as an escape—a way to not have to deal with my problems. I began to notice that marijuana actually increased my anxiety, because I was so adamant to change the ways I viewed myself and the world in a negative manner. It was a very stressful process—me attempting to control the way the plant made me feel. Even so much, that I quit for a long time and didn't think about smoking anymore.

          We will come back to this topic later in the story, but for now I want to focus on the main question: How do we trigger or experience ego death? There are several ways an individual can have an ego death, the most powerful generally being when using psychedelic drugs. I don't want to open up too much about my substance use in the past, but I will only focus on the drugs that I believe helped benefit the way I viewed the world in a positive manner. The main ones were LSD, psilocybin mushrooms, ketamine, and DXM (Dextromethorphan).

          This is where the story gets tricky. You may be thinking to yourself that I might not be the best person to listen to if I've been a drug user in the past. Sometimes society portrays drug use to always be a negative thing—people who can't cope with their problems turn to drugs to run away from reality, and I totally get that. But all I ask is that you please hear me out and listen to what I have to say, because I truly think that I can help change a lot of lives with this story. All I ask is that you take a chance on me.

          Another way we can experience ego death (this one probably being the weakest) is through meditation. Meditation can bring us to the present moment when focusing on our breath and surroundings. 

          The final way (at least in my opinion) is through the loss of a loved one or suffering a romantic heartbreak. You know that feeling when you finally sense you're growing a connection with that special someone? That feeling of warmth flowing through every vein in your body, only for them to say the words, "Sorry, but I'm seeing someone else." That right there is ego death—that feeling of zero control.

          Control has played such a big part in my life for the last four years that it just started to feel like an everyday habit. I was trying to control certain emotions and avoid putting myself in certain situations to dodge any unwanted or intrusive thoughts and feelings. Looking back at it now from a whole new life perspective, I can only cringe at the self-limiting standards I had placed on myself and how much I held back my full potential, all out of fear. This is why it was so important for me to experience ego death once again, this one more powerful than ever.

          My second ego death had come recently after I graduated from high school. My drug use at the time had gotten to a point where I felt I could no longer control it, so I checked myself into a youth rehabilitation centre for the first of two times. Going into rehab the first time I had a very negative, closed-off mindset. Even though I had agreed to get help, I had already made a conscious decision that I wasn't going to interact with anyone aside from working on my substance use. I even spent the first day in my room all alone, refusing to come out and take part in any social interaction. My ego simply wouldn't let me.

          Feeling like I'd come across as a stuck-up jerk, I gradually began to open up to the staff, but remained very isolated from peers my own age that were going through similar struggles as I. 

          Long story short, even though I did have rough times there (as everything was a learning process of how to live sober), I can honestly say that it was surprisingly one of the happiest times of my whole life. I made connections with other youth and staff that I hadn't felt in a very long time. By the end of my stay, I was actually sad to be leaving. I even plan to write a story with a similar plotline in the future titled, "Rehab."

          I had also never been more proud of my writing, as it was around this time I grew an ambition to share it with more people than only myself. The staff and other youth said they were impressed with my skills, and this was when I made my Wattpad account and began online publishing. I made my username @FilledWithRage, as it had been an old gamer tag from my Call of Duty days. I was infamously known for "rage quitting," a term in which a gamer gets frustrated with their play and gives up, and I also liked the way the name sounded.

          I had a few ups and downs from there, but life had never been better. 

          About a month later, the euphoria only continued, where I went on a two-week vacation with my family and extended family to the Dominican Republic. Even though I had a few drinks towards the end of the trip, I was living sober for the first time in a while, and was developing connections with my extended family while we had fun at the hotel and along the beautiful beaches. We even went on a tour through a section of town infested with deep poverty, and it only made me feel even more grateful for the life I was living.

          However, my positive outlook only lasted so long, and I found myself slowly crashing back into old, negative habits. My need for control was returning, as I found myself struggling with OCD every time I tried to write or read my stories. Gradually, what had once been an outlet for me to express myself, had now turned into a stressful, unhappy process. The realization of knowing that I couldn't enjoy writing anymore (at least that's what I had convinced myself at the time) was simply too much to handle. My extreme thinking had led me to a new all-time low, and I was more unhappy than I had ever been in my entire life. Especially after getting a taste of what I really wanted, even though I fed myself lies again that I didn't because I was living back in fear and not taking risks.

          I fell back into drinking and drugging and finding myself frustrated. It even got so bad, that out of a fit of impulsive anger, I deleted all of my stories. If you have been following me on Wattpad since my earliest days, you will remember I had a meltdown and talked about giving up writing for good. All my hard work and passion—hours and hours of creative thought process—all thrown away because I couldn't control my emotions. (I want to make clear that I'll be rewriting most of those stories and found some backup copies in my hard drive.)

          I woke up the next day, as I'd been drinking when I made the impulsive act, and the realization of what I had done sent a harrowing chill down my spine. What I was so proud of was all thrown away at my own hands, as my extreme thinking continued to belittle me. I developed a deep hatred for myself. How could I slip so far? Just a few months ago I was living my best life, and now I was back to bullying and beating myself up. The answer is that my ego had returned. Or, in other words, my ego death had only lasted so long.

          Sometimes when we are feeling intense emotions, our ego builds barriers up to protect us. In the heat of the moment, we say things that we don't actually mean, like that we don't deserve love or that we are destined for unhappiness. During these moments, it's very easy to feel self-pity. I have come to learn, at least from my experience, that self-pity is all about numbing our emotions. When we feel self-pity, we are looking at life from a victim's perspective, so we aren't forced to take on the responsibilities of our own mistakes.

          But when we are in a state of ego death, we come to realize that we simply don't have time to feel sorry for ourselves! Our lives are too short and precious to be wasting them thinking negative thoughts and dwelling on the past. Like I mentioned earlier, each day that passes is one that you'll never get back. Every second that ticks down is running out the battery charging your life. You're literally on a planet spinning in circles through a galaxy within a universe and its unlimited potential, and we're choosing to focus on all the negative aspects of life.

          I want to do a quick exercise with you so we can check your ego. I want you to think of something you would never do—a no-go zone for you. For many of us, getting up in front of an audience and singing would be terrifying. So much so, that we'd tell ourselves we can't do it, or that we might make ourselves look dumb. But really this isn't the true, authentic version of yourself talking—this is your ego trying to protect you. That's your ego taking over when you refuse to change, or see things from a different perspective.

          For the next part of the exercise, I want you to imagine that you are 80+ years old. You're laying on your bed in a care home, ready to pass away. This is your last few moments of breath. Assuming that you've lived your life the exact same as you have been up until now, are you truly happy with the way things went? I need you to be brutally honest. Or did you hold yourself back and not do the things you wanted out of fear that you'd get hurt in the process? These are some valuable questions to ask yourself. Valuable questions that I knew I had to ask, but kept putting off because of fear.

          My third ego death was the darkest of them all, as I will now go into detail about the time I had a bad mushroom trip. I say bad, but really this was one of the most important experiences of my entire life. Near the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, I had been eating magic mushrooms all day long one particular afternoon and smoking cannabis. I was using the mushrooms for all the wrong reasons, like to escape my reality instead of confronting the things that I knew deep down were holding me back. Psychedelic drugs are meant to be used for spiritual use—not abuse.

          I redosed before bed for what I believe was the fourth time in one day, and on top of that continued to smoke more weed in the backyard, and oh...my...God. It came out of nowhere: I had full-blown ego death like I'd never experienced. I felt similar sensations to the time I had first watched the postcard video, but only this time it was so much more intense. At that moment, I did quite literally the very worst thing you can possibly do when consuming psychedelic drugs—and that is when we attempt to control or manipulate the outcome of the trip.

          I started to panic. In a shriek of delirium, I ran upstairs and told my poor parents to call an ambulance. We started to fight, as it took me a long time to explain that I had taken drugs again. Looking back, I feel absolutely horrible for what I put my parents through, as it must have been terrifying to see their son in such a matter. Within only a matter of minutes, I had 100% convinced myself that I was going to die that night. The amount of pent-up fear inside me was indescribable. I started walking around in circles like a crazy person, panicking and telling my parents that I loved them and how sorry I was that I was going to die. I thought of all the people who would miss me and all the memories I'd not get to experience because of my poor choices.

          But more than anything, I felt an overwhelming sense of regret. I felt all the things that you were feeling when you did the exercise of envisioning yourself at the end of your life, realizing that you missed out on so many opportunities because you didn't take advantage of them when you had the chance. I'm too young to die! I thought to myself. I hadn't even fallen in love yet. I hadn't done all the things that I'd deep down wanted to do when I was sulking and telling myself I wasn't worthy of happiness, like travel the world and share all the positive attributes that I'd been holding back out of fear.

          The police eventually arrived and handcuffed me, putting me on a stretcher, the whole time myself crying and repeating how sorry I was. In the ambulance ride to the hospital, I kept thinking about how bad I wanted to travel back in time and get back all those wasted moments, considering that tonight was going to be my final day on planet earth.

          To summarize things up, I passed out and awoke in the hospital to my body and hair drenched in sweat. The drugs had worn off by then, and I couldn't believe it—I was still alive. I get a second chance at life! I thought triumphantly. The relief I felt was nearly orgasmic. 

          As my senses gradually returned, I could hear my father telling the doctor that he was very concerned for me, and rightfully so. Just like the day I had woken up from deleting my stories, I felt a sense of bitterness towards myself.

          The ride home with my father was very quiet and awkward. It was only six in the morning when the doctor gave us permission to leave the emergency room. I knew I wanted to change; I knew I had to do something to improve my life. Yet that was my biggest problem. I was waiting for change to come to me, as opposed to going after change myself. As hard as it is to admit, I was my own worst enemy. I never looked at myself in the mirror and said, "I'm the one who needs to change, not others."

          I started getting back into writing and attending a drama class. But even though I was pursuing these motives, I still wasn't using my full potential, and not even close. Ego death is all about the willingness to let go. I tried resisting this for as long as I could, until I finally reached a point where I just couldn't keep lying to myself.

          At least when I was smoking weed now I was using it for the purpose to explore and see what parts of my mind I could reopen. My mushroom trip had been a traumatizing one, but it was also good because it sparked a realization within me that my time on planet earth is very scarce. I became curious as to why I felt so much anxiety when smoking pot in the past, and I quickly came to the conclusion that it was because I was constantly trying to control things. Now with a somewhat more open mindset, I found myself enjoying the high more, and I was able to look at the world in different philosophical ways, mostly as I went on my phone and did research on how I could improve my thinking strategies.

          My fourth and final ego death would be the one that sparked a permanent change in my overall outlook on the world, and this time it was positive. I decided that I was going to eat mushrooms again. After what had happened last time, I vowed to never touch any psychedelic drug ever again. But I wanted to expose myself to that feeling again. Rather than fear it, I wanted to embrace it. I had done enough research on ego death by now that I felt comfortable putting myself back through the psychedelic experience, even after my last one had been so scary and traumatic. I don't want this story to sound like I am condoning drug use, but I only wish to tell it in its purest, honest form. 

          So after acquiring the mushrooms, making sure they were safe with a testing kit, I found a night in my schedule that would work nicely to reach my higher power. This time I went into the trip with the polar opposite mindset as I had on my prior one—I was thinking positively, and more than anything, I was open to seeing where this experience would take me.

          Once I had consumed the mushrooms, I went out back and smoked a quick bowl of weed to enhance the effects. My bedroom downstairs had always felt like a safe place for me, as that was where I'd be experiencing the trip. I even dimmed the lights and sprayed a bottle of lavender. I know this sounds extreme, but I was truly ready to die again and be reborn. I was living my life through fear, and I was ready to change that night. It was time I use my full potential.

          The effects came on rather fast. No matter what, I told myself to sit with whatever came up. I reminded myself that nothing could be as bad as what happened last time, and I knew, that like cannabis, it was impossible to overdose on mushrooms. 

          I began to feel similar sensations to that frightful night, but I remained calm and breathed with the feelings. Gradually, I started to enjoy the process more, and with this new mindset, I was quickly able to feel confidence within me to let go of my old, negative ways. I felt like a powerful God, ready to share my knowledge and love with the world.

          About two hours into the trip, as I was about to peak, I wanted to enhance the effects to the absolute max. It was now or never. I had spent so much time and energy wasted by holding on to things that didn't serve me. So I grabbed my phone and decided that I was going to watch the postcard video again. For a while, it was taken down off YouTube but reuploaded. I can't exactly remember how I first found the video, but its memory will always be burned into the back of my skull, especially while I was tripping.

          I had tears running down my cheeks as I watched all the beautiful pictures and memories fade to nothing but dust. This is going to happen to us one day, I thought to myself. But I had to accept that. Rather than dwell on it and all the other negative aspects of the world, I was now choosing to take advantage of this higher power and start living my very best life. I wanted this feeling of pain to be burned into my memory so I could have a constant ambition to reach a level that I knew I'd been holding myself back from.

          And this is what I ask of you—to try and find something that triggers this type of awareness. Maybe you could watch the postcard video, or anything that gives you a strong reminder that your time on earth is very limited. Like I said at the beginning of the story, there is such a thing as good anxiety. So make the commitment to at least try seeing things from a different perspective. And remember, if you don't like the way it makes you feel, you can always go back to your old thinking patterns.

          But make this commitment right now, after reading this story. Not tomorrow or next week, or a year later—right now. We've wasted far too much time holding ourselves back, living in our safe zone. It's time that we forgive ourselves for the mistakes we've made in the past and let our true emotions arise. No more feeling sorry for our egos and letting our negative emotions get the best of us. I can't stress it enough: time is running out! So get up and make the most of your day. I hate to sound like a drill instructor, but sometimes we need a good kick in the butt—or at least I did.

          And who's to say that you won't die tomorrow? What if you slip in the shower and hit your head? What if you get in a car accident on the way to work? What if you're struck by a bolt of lightning while walking down the street? These are all valid reasons as to why you should be living each and every day like it's your last. Nothing is guaranteed. We take so many things for granted in our everyday life, but when we experience ego death we are simply forced to acknowledge them. Every day you put off is another day that you waste, and you will realize this instantly while going through hyper-awareness.

          Jim Carrey, the actor, once said, "One day I woke up and everything just clicked. The metaphorical lightbulb went off above my head." And I'm here to tell you that my lightbulb has gone off. Actually, it did a long time ago, but now I am choosing to pursue it. I can't get back the times I wasted dwelling on the past—they are simply out of my control. But what I can do is make sure these same events don't occur in the future, and that I use my time and energy wisely.

          For many people reading this online, you won't know me. But for the people that do know me, I need you to be patient with me. This change isn't all going to come overnight, but I'm ready to start taking the baby steps in that direction, and I ask that you please join me in the process. 

          So live every day like it's your last, and count your blessings.

          Remember, we're all in this together.