I used to wish that I could die so I could be finished with all my suffering. Some of us are like that. We just want to get it all over with. Maybe enter into our reward in heaven, as they used to put it in the old days. For so much of human history, at least for us in the West, we’ve been living this life so that we may be rewarded in the next. Life was hard. People didn’t live that long, and so it might’ve been natural for our ancestors to orient themselves toward an afterlife which was painted as much better than the yoke and the plow they had before them.

This year has been a particularly tough one, and sometimes I didn’t look at what I had to be grateful for. In my darker moments, I just wished it would all be over. And wishing is a weak form of prayer. I wish sometimes that I had a remote button for my life. Some parts I’d like to rewind and replay, over and over, escaping into a past that no longer is, and that wasn’t even really all it was cracked up to be.

And sometimes I wish I could pause the frame so I’ll make a more prudent, less heated choice than I made the first time around. When I was in high school, I went out with a girl whose former boyfriend, Chris, was a wrestler. He insulted her honor, called her a slut for breaking up with him and dating me. I’d defend that honor, whatever that means to a 16-year-old. Skinny me gathered all my friends from Welles Park where we hung out, drove over to his house, and with 10 dudes at my back, I threatened him. He put out his hand to apologize, and I batted it away in pride.

“Maybe you shoulda shook his hand,” my buddy, Vince, said as we drove back to the park. “He’s bigger than you. He’s a wrestler.”

A little while later, after all my friends had gone home, Chris shows up with his own car full of buddies. One had a tire iron, another a motorcycle chain. I was surrounded. I looked up to the sky and thought: This is where I die. Chris said that his friends would lay off with the heavy weaponry if he and me went heads up with just our fists. He punched me and I went down, literally seeing stars as I hit the ground. I got a blackeye. I lost the girl, who went back to dating Chris.

I’d always wished I could rewind, go back, and pause right after he’d put out his hand to apologize. I’d shake it this time. Driven by my pride or my anger or some cheap desire, I need to pause, to reflect, and then proceed. But my life doesn’t have a remote.

And sometimes, I wish I could fast forward through a day and get to its end. You ever do that with work? Just wish you could speed up time so that it’s lunch already, or you’re punching out? Or fast forward through a week and get to Friday? Or speed through January and February? Sometimes, I even wish I could just get to the end of the whole thing. Because I’m tired, or because I ache somewhere, or because it all seems like a rerun anyway.

It occurred to me one day while I was obsessing over some insoluble problem, the specifics of which I cannot now remember, that as long as I approached my life that way, my suffering would never end. Because suffering is resistance.

Just say that there is an afterlife. Call it heaven or nirvana or paradise. They call it a place, and we all want to get there from here. But is it really a place? And it always seems to be in the future, doesn’t it? Assume that I get to that place called heaven sometime in the future. Maybe because I’ve been an especially good boy. Isn’t that really just what we tell kids, btw? That if they’re good, then they’ll get rewarded by the Man in Red? What’s the difference between a child’s belief in Santa and our concept of heaven? Isn’t it all just behavior modification, like we do to train dogs? And dogs are more Zenlike than we are. They don’t think about heaven. They can’t conceive of a Santa. To them, Christmas is just like any other day, and heaven? It’s a yard full of three-legged cats.

Anyway, let’s assume I get into heaven. So there I am, in heaven, trying to enjoy myself. But I’m still there, with me, having to face me, to live with me, and to live within myself. So if I was intent on being miserable before I died, I won’t be in heaven even if I’m there. I’ll still be unhappy, waiting for some future place and time when I won’t be miserable anymore. If I was worried about everything in this life, if I was frustrated because I wasn’t getting what I wanted, if I was angry with half the world, if I was afraid of people, how does any of that change once I die?  What makes me think that some magical transformation in my consciousness takes place just because my body dies? If there’s something that survives the end of this life, I’ll still be me. I’ll still have to live with me. So whatever I’m like here, I’ll probably be like there. Whatever I feel and think now, I’ll probably think and feel then. That’s why heaven never arrives, until I make a decision to change my mind.

So if I’m unhappy here, maybe I’ll be unhappy in heaven, too, and that means it’s not heaven. I’m still with me, and I still have this itty-bitty shitty committee that feasts off my own damned misery. And so in heaven, even though I’m surrounded by 90 virgins or clouds or cherubs with harps or what have you, I won’t be in paradise at all. I’ll complain about the music: It’s always that same damn harp song. I’ll bitch about the virgins: They’re not anatomically correct. That’s why they’re still virgins. I’ll even whine about the clouds: They all look like angels with wings. I want choo choo trains!

Unless I’m at peace with me, unless I’m comfortable with myself now, I’ll never get to paradise. Paradise is to live joyously with myself, loving myself like no one else can, working toward happiness from the inside-out, and not the outside-in. Heaven is just a state of mind. It’s not a place, and it’s not in the future. It’s always in the time zone called now. And you can have it right now because it is now. It’s always now. You don’t have to wait for it or fast forward to it. Now is the only time that’s always accessible, because it’s always now. And since it isn’t a place, then paradise must be here. It’s the one place that’s always available because you bring it along inside you. You don’t have to go on vacation to enjoy it.

For most of my life, I wasn’t a happy person. I think I was born like that, and I’ve had to work hard and live a while to overcome that perpetual tendency toward pessimism and misery. Did I go to hell for that? No, because I was already there. For better or for worse, I create the space around me and drag it along with me. That’s all ‘the world’ is. I create it with my state of mind, which I choose. I choose whether to live in the present moment. If I live in the moment, I can’t help but be happy. I can’t help but be at peace. But if I’m waiting for some future time or condition to be happy, I’ll never be.

So, for me there’s no sense in living for the future. It never comes. It makes no sense to tell myself that I’ll be happy then and there, because it’s always here and now.

So, throw away your DVR (or your DVD player, if you still have one). Even if you could fast-forward through the rough parts, you’d find they’re the same as the good ones.

© 2025 by Michael C. Just

Mike’s short story collection, Canyon Calls, was published by Zumaya Publications in 2009. Mike’s novel, The Dirt: The Journey of a Mystic Cowboy, is available in softcover or eBook formats through Amazon.

Mike’s other titles, including his novels, The Crippy and The Mind Altar, as well as Canyon Calls, are available through his websites, https://justmikejust.com and https://canyoncallsthebook.com or through Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B002

Five of his short stories have recently been published online:

Lies, Ltd. has been published by The Mystery Tribune @ Lies, Ltd.: Literary Short Fiction by Michael C. Just (mysterytribune.com)

The Obligate Carnivore has been published by the Scarlet Leaf Review @ Category: MICHAEL JUST – SCARLET LEAF REVIEW

I See You, Too has been published by the 96th of October @ I See You, Too – 96th of October

Offload, has been published by The Worlds Within at Offload – The Worlds Within

You Get the Two has been published by Hellbound Books and is available in print, eBook, kindle or audio format at Kids are Hell!- Anthology (hellboundbookspublishing.com)