In 2013, I died.
The reason I died was not because of anyone else. It was me.
I was not happy.
I didn't like the way I felt.
I didn't know where my value was in the world.
I couldn't understand why the world was so dark, filled with hatred, violence, racism, fear, and more.
I felt life weighing on me like a thousand pounds of bricks.
I was tired. I didn't know what to do about life.
The reason
I decided to die June 13, 2013.
I was lonely.
I mean, I had people around me, many friends, supportive family.
But in my mind, I was lonely.
I didn’t know it at the time, but now I do.
I didn’t realize how not allowing myself to be truly seen affected me.
I didn’t realize how disconnected that would leave me with people I claimed were “family” and “friends.”
It’s as if I created another world in my mind... but I never told anyone about it.
Tired. Unhappy. Unfilled.
The world didn't need me anymore. It was obvious.
It wasn't a sudden death. It took time.
Although I didn't completely die (I am still here), this is a real part of my story.
The story
I grew up in a loving family.
My mom, Yolanda, is a passionate chef. She started at age 7.
My dad, Thaddeus, is a gifted musician. He doesn’t remember starting. (He started young)
My brother was always the more physical one. Soccer, baseball, cross country.
I grew up in the Christian church.
I grew up behind a computer screen programming since age 9.
I thought my life was perfect.
No one told me
No one told me how to be.
I was told what to do.
Society, teachers, parents. It was all do-focused. It wasn’t about being.
I don’t remember anyone telling me I was part of a species called “humanity.”
I don’t remember anyone telling me that our continued evolution as a species required participation and us working together.
I don’t remember anyone teaching me about my body in a way that resonated. I’m not talking about remembering scientific bone structure. I’m talking about the basics. Exercise, things about how my brain works, and more.
To be clear, I am not blaming anyone or anything.
I am sharing what I remember.
I also accept everyone is doing the best they can.
I also acknowledge science and neuroscience have evolved since I was in school.
I never realized how what I learned would lead to my death.
I grew up in this world
I still remember the first time I saw a Windows 95 screen.
I also had fun on computers that ran DOS (for those who remember).
My world was connected together via the Internet in my earliest memories.
Before technology and the ultimate connection to my humanity, life was about my sandbox, hot wheels, and Legos.
The “information highway” left me stuck on it like a treadmill I didn't know how to control.
As a child, my brain didn’t know how to handle the novelty and dopamine intake.
My curiosities ran wild in the cyberworld.
I remember being a child going through every folder on the computer and researching what every file did.
I remember drawing a keyboard on pieces of paper to help me remember the keys.
I remember the days of Geocities and Angelfire where I would experiment with building websites.
I remember how cool it was to make text scroll across the screen (referred to as a marquee). I was fascinated.
Because I stayed on the “information highway” treadmill for so long, getting lost in articles and learning, and because I had so much novelty, I had a difficult time remembering.
Or, at least it seemed this way.
I remember how I studied for tests from elementary school to college. Do the homework, remember for the test, dump things out on the test, move on. I trained myself to forget.
The only information that I retained were things that re-surfaced over and over. Patterns eventually became obvious. If I wanted to learn something, I had to want to do it. Otherwise, it was study, remember, take the test, and forget it.
This pattern would lead me, paired with self-doubt, to reading the same type of article dozens of times until I finally admitted to myself I probably wouldn’t learn anything new.
A few weeks back a friend pointed out something I said often. I say, “I’ve never thought about that.” I call out the novel ideas that pass through my mind.
Otherwise, I felt as though I’ve mentally experienced nearly everything through movies, articles, books and stories I have heard people tell. Of course, this isn’t true. (And when I believe it’s true, my world of certainty leaves me fearful of losing the way I believe life is)
Sure, I’ve done some things
If I combine my travel over the past 10 years, I’ve probably traveled a total of about 1 year around the US and abroad.
This isn’t the “normal” type of travel.
I usually don’t go to a hotel and do tourist things.
I live with new people. Sometimes, strangers.
I meet new friends.
I stay in guest rooms.
I have done things I’ve never thought about doing. It has left me with remarkable adventurous stories.
Everything I learned behind a computer screen aided me in travel.
More than that, because of the way I traveled, it allowed me to experience people differently.
I was able to learn about other ways of doing this thing called “life.”
Thousands of conversations behind a computer screen paired with thousands of conversations offline has led me to notice patterns and possibilities.
These are not things I learned behind a TV screen. That’s different. I’ve rarely watched TV since age 9. The patterns and possibilities I’ve noticed are from real stories and experiences.
I am an entrepreneur
To be clear, I am not sharing any of these things to brag or to prove anything. I’m providing the backstory on my death.
I had a car washing business for 4 summers when I was 9 years old (I made the money to buy the computer programming books I read, along with a calculator watch and a BMX bike).
At age 14, I had a wedding videography business with my cousin. I filmed dozens of weddings as an observer before I was a participant.
Between ages of 11 and 18, I freelanced on hundreds of projects for people around the world (often hiring subcontractors).
Why did it matter if I was a 15 year old working on setting up tech software for a company in another country? As long as I could communicate well, and get the job done, so it was.
From age 18 to 21, I officially had a tech company that did IT consulting, web development, and server administration both in-home and corporate.
From 22 to 26, I pivoted my company to focus on mobile marketing. That was 2009 when I started talking about mobile marketing and how smartphones are changing the way our species communicates. Eventually, I’d speak on the topic at several venues, sit on mobile marketing panels, and work on fun projects for companies. I was doing everything I thought I should be doing, chasing the opportunity.
It was 2013, and I decided to die.
What more to life was there?
I felt as though I had done so much.
What more was there to do?
Little did I know what would happen next.
I wanted to die because
The world was full of fear, remember? Violence, hatred, racism, etc.
The world was full of scarcity.
Never enough time, never enough money, never enough happiness, never enough satisfaction.
Add things like terrorism and 9/11.
Add things like increased imprisonment and incarceration facts and racial inequality.
Add things like shootings and death in Kindergartens and schools around the US.
Add things like war.
Add things like climate change and disastrous storms killing thousands.
Add things like Japan’s nuclear crisis.
Add things like another boat spilling who-knows-how-much oil into the oceans and polluting and killing ocean wildlife.
Add things like the drought in California (where I currently live).
Add things like friends I had getting killed in accidents or family members with Alzheimer's or stories of people dying with cancer.
Need I continue?
I wanted to die because
If it’s not already obvious, life was painful.
Why would I want to live in this world?
I was tired of running around like a wounded animal trying to survive.
I was tired of people telling me what to do.
I was tired of the struggle.
Death was the best way out.
If I didn’t do it
I would eventually die anyway. Maybe not by myself, but slowly, I would die.
The world would kill me.
I would die doing things I hated.
I would die unsatisfied.
I would die with regrets for lacking courage.
I would hurt those around me because I would tell them they cannot do what they wanted.
I would tell them about this dark world we live in.
I would spread the darkness, the hate, the violence, the fear, and all of the things that scared me.
After I died to myself
My death was a death to my old way of being.
The hanging bear photo from above is symbolic of getting rid of my undeveloped perspective of this thing I called "life."
My death was a death to the thing I called “reality.”
I called it “reality” and I let it chase me like a lion chasing its prey. I was the prey.
When I spoke about reality, I spoke with certainty, because reality is reality. That idea has died with my old self. I learned that I define my own reality.
I died the minute I made the decision to end things.
Everything dark I said about the world was not the world.
It was me.
It was the way I unknowingly chose to see the world.
Everything I experienced was the result of me.
After I died to my old way of living, I came back stronger.
Stronger not only for myself, but for those around me. More importantly, for the legacy I am living.
I didn’t realize that my world was within my power to change. This is “how to change the world for dummies.” The 1-liner summary? Learn to change how I see the world.
I noticed my language changed.
Instead of saying phrases like, “You said...” I started saying, “I heard you say...”
Notice the difference.
In the first version (“You said...”), I am telling someone what they said. In the second version (“I heard you say...”), I am acknowledging what I heard since I only have the power to speak over my life.
I noticed that my “chase” and “pursuit of happiness” was not about looking outward. It was about looking inward. It was about seeing the love within.
My world changed from this...
Never enough time, never enough money, never enough happiness, never enough satisfaction.
To this...
More acceptance, more compassion, more understanding, more happiness, more satisfaction, greater peace.
I started to see where my power lives. It lives within.
When it lived outside of me, it explained why I was insecure. I was insecure because I was trying to create external security in things I cannot create security in (with certainty). It was like fighting gravity. It is a losing battle.
The more I started to see the light, the more I realized how afraid of the dark I had been.
When I lived in the external dark world I had created, I realized I was afraid of confronting the things that made me feel uncomfortable.
Here is what I could not understand before my death
Before I decided to end my way of being, I could have never understood what I understand now.
I compare it to exercise.
It was as if my old way of being was eating fast food every day and I was excessively overweight and I never exercised.
I would be sluggish, feel unpleasant, and likely die early.
Looking back on myself in 2013, I can see the misery. I can see the emptiness. I can see the internal tension, confusion, and frustration with life.
My new self cannot fully communicate to my old self what life would be like if I was healthy, in shape, and eating well.
My old unhealthy self could not understand the feeling after exercising. The rush of endorphins. The newfound energy and ability to think at higher levels.
My new self knows that this new way of being is not something that can be understood. It can only be experienced.
The difference is, I am not talking about physical health.
I am talking about my mental health. That is where I died.
What I learned from dying
I learned that before my death within, I lived in a mental prison. My beliefs left me trapped. Suffocating. Unable to get out.
Instead of confronting my mental prison, I spent my life running away from it. Who would want to live in such a prison? I spent my life running away from myself. It left me hopeless, powerless, and blaming others.
I was like an animal running for my survival without knowing what I was running from.
(I even had running dreams of being chased)
Now I know. I was running away from the world I had created for myself.
Now, I allow myself to be fully seen.
I learned that dying to myself is not about the past. It is about my future.
I learned that I am not the things I do. The things I do are not my identity.
My identity? Let me tell you what my identity is.
I am one of ~7 billion people. I am a human being. That is my only identity.
I learned that the death to my old way of being was not an overnight process. It took time, effort, energy, and strength (and tears and courage). It was a destruction to my old habits and beliefs.
Earlier I said that I was only taught how to “do.”
Do this. Do that. Do it this way. Live this way.
Now I know, being empowers doing.
When my engine is strong, I can drive my car the way I want to drive it.
My death was about re-learning how to be.
I learned that I used to be afraid of the dark. Stubborn, afraid, insecure, whenever someone tried to tell me something about myself or something I didn’t understand I wouldn’t listen to them. I was afraid of the dark in my life. I was afraid of what I could not see. This taught me what it meant to be in denial. I was afraid of not being able to see the things I did not understand. My actions reflected this.
I learned that a death to my old way of being is the cycle of nature. A seed needs to come completely undone for it to achieve its greatest expression. This is my death.
I learned that my death is not personal. It is not selfish. It affects others. My new way of being affects others in the way I consciously want to affect them. Call it mindfulness.
I learned that my old world was reactively created. No filter, no protection for what I wanted. Now, I have learned to see the world proactively. Instead of being fueled by anger or sadness, I am fueled by the way things are and the way I want them to be. I am not a puppet to emotions I do not understand.
I learned that my death has nothing to do with my age. I learned that everyone is on their own journey. As I have learned how to honor and respect my own journey, I have learned how to honor and respect the journey of others.
I learned that truth is not external. It is internal. It is the foundation I choose to build my life on.
I learned that drinking alcohol and caffeine was not the answer to slowing myself down or speeding myself up.
I learned that procrastination was the result of my old self. It was the result of unexamined internal tension and clashing beliefs that did not serve me.
The more responsibility I took over every aspect of my life, the more I became connected with possibility.
Maybe none of this is about a death to my old self.
Maybe it is a surrender to myself.
A surrender to the prison I woke up in.
A surrender to the idea that I created my own mental prison and I have a decision with how I respond to it.
A surrender to possibility.
A surrender to my biology.
A surrender to love.
I learned that I decided to die to my old way of life. To my old self.
When I decided to do this, I decided to create a new life, with new beliefs about my world, that served me better.
This process made me feel great. It made me feel strong.
And I am still growing up. I am still learning. Every day. Until I leave this existence.
I wonder what our world would look like if more people did this.
I wonder what you would look like if you did this.
Introspection is about more than self-awareness.
Introspection is the first step in our evolution to true strength.
It is the first step in our evolution to meaningful impact.
It is the first step in our evolution to understanding our innate freedom.
It is the first step in our evolution to powerful legacy.
After all, we cannot change what we cannot see.
Enough of this story with how I died.
Instead, I want this to be a piece of my eulogy.
I want someone who has never met me to say this after I leave:
“I never knew Matthew. He never knew me. But I followed him. I read the meaningful words he wrote. I watched his original videos with insightful messages. I saw the genuine photos he shared with thought-provoking questions and quotes that his team created. I heard what others said about him.
From what I gather, Matthew was compassionate. He respected those around him. He respected me, and I didn’t even know him. He believed in me. Even if he didn’t know me, he believed in what was possible for me. I read it from him. He affirmed me through the things he shared. He didn’t lecture me or tell me what to think and how to feel. No, that’s not Matthew. He invested his time to help me see my own possibilities. He helped me see what the world could be like. The more I learned how to see, the more I learned how to use my own two eyes, the more I began to see the power in his truth.
And he did more than that. He taught me how to talk to myself. I believe in the way Matthew made me feel because he inspired me to live a more meaningful life. Not only for me, but for my company, for my children, for those around me. He taught me how to feel. He taught me how to love myself. He gave me permission to do this when I saw the way he treated himself. This is the Matthew I know.”
What will people say about you?
