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In Fight Club, Tyler Durden takes [un]willing participants on questionable experiences that help reframe their perspective on their lives. Between basement fight clubs, chemical burns and near-death experiences, he put a crack in the fragile reality that many of these men had holding thier lives together, who volunteered to subject themselves to Tyler’s ways.

Near the end of the film as Tyler grows bolder and more reckless, there’s a scene most viewers will remember.

Raymond. Raymond K Hessel. Apartment B – ‘shitty basement apartments letters instead of numbers.’

For those that haven’t seen the film, the scene goes something like this:

Tyler pulls a large handgun out of a backpack and proceeds to walk into a convenience store. As he returns, he’s holding the store clerk by the neck, with the gun pointed at his head. He flips through the mans wallet before finding his ID card, at which point he tells the man:

“Raymond, you’re gonna die tonight.”

As the man pleads for his life, Tyler notices an expired community college card in the wallet.

“What’d you want to be, Raymond?”

“A veterinarian! I wanted to be a veteranarian!”

“Why’d you stop?”

“Schooing. Too much schooling!” the man cries.

“Would you rather be dead?” Tyler asks.

The man pleads for his life one final time before Tyler looks him in the eye and tells him:

“If you aren’t on your way to becoming a veterinarian by tomorrow, I will find you. I know where you live. Now, get out of here!”

The man runs off, while Tyler remarks:

“Tomorrow will be the best day of Raymond’s life. His breakfast will taste better than any meal you and I have ever had.”

While it’s just a scene from a movie, there was something very striking about those few minutes that’s stuck with me ever since I first watched Fight Club at the age of 17 – over 20 years ago.

All of us are going to die. However, it’s rare that we stop mid-life to think about what we really want to do, who we want to be, and ask ourselves the tough question: “Am I making the effort to becoming that person?”

It’s hard to imagine that it’s been nearly twenty years since I lost my Dad to cancer. It seems like only yesterday when I got the call, which is forever imprinted in my memory; down to the way the heather sheets felt as I lay on my bed on Norwich avenue.

Over the years, I’ve had my own concerns that I would die a similar fate as my Dad, and I’ve feared that one day I’ll look at an X-ray at my own guts while hearing a doctor give me the fateful C-word, along with a life expectancy and treatment plan. As uncomfortable as it is to write this, it’s a true fear that I have had to live with.

Unlike my Dad, I decided to be proactive in cancer screenings; getting not just one, but two colonoscopies before the age of 40. I already know what I’m getting myself for my 40th birthday, too.

It’s a difficult thing to go through a colonoscopy. Not because the procedure itself is hard or painful, but because there’s a period of uncertainty where you don’t know whether or not the doctor will find anything while they probe your intestines through the back door; your ass.

Ahead of my 40th birthday present, I decided to order two at-home colon cancer screenting tests for peace-of-mind. I’ll spare you the details of how the testing process works, but the goal of the test is to determine if any blood is present in your stools, which indicates internal bleeding/polyps.

Yesterday, I woke up at 5 in the morning and walked into the bathroom to take the test. As I prepared the sample, I had a moment of hesitation before inserting it into the indicator strip – which reminded me a lot of a pregnancy test.

I paused. I thought about my life. I thought about how I would feel if the test showed positive. In a lot of ways, it felt like the moment where Tyler Durden pointed a magnum at Raymond K. Hessel.

I jammed the collection stick into the test strip port, and waited.

Negative.

I breathed a sigh of relief and went back to bed to lay down with Atlas. That morning felt like one of the best mornings of my life and I felt a clear sense of purpose for the rest of the day.

Prior to completing this entry, I took a second test. It also showed negative.

Today, I’m thankful for another day. Another week. Another year.
I’m thankful to have a beautiful son that loves me and whispers “I love you” in my ear before he falls asleep.
I’m thankful to have a peaceful home where we can thrive.
I’m thankful for clients that pay the bills and sincerely care about my well-being.
I’m thankful to have a life well-spent and a future that’s promising.

Most of all, I’m thankful to be here.