Life Is Simple – We Complicate It

I’m sure by now you’ve heard that Teddy Pendergrass died at the age of 59 after a bout with colon cancer. Aren’t you sick and tired of seeing people that we love died so young? I mean I know that we all have to go sometime but why don’t we at least strive to be a Centenarian? If this were the case that means the following would be true.

We would have had this much more time with the following celebrities:

50 more years with Michael Jackson
41 more years with Teddy Pendergrass
38 more years with Farrah Fawcett
60 more years with Gerald Levert
39 more years with Naomi Sims
43 more years with Patrick Swayze
12 more years with Ricardo Montaban
64 more years with Steve McNair
8 more years with Walter Cronkite
50 more years with Bernie Mac
21 more years with Bo Diddley
19 more years with Eartha Kitt
29 more years with George Carlin
35 more years with Isaac Hayes
17 more years with Paul Newman

I’ve only chosen celebrities here but you can choose someone that you personally know that is not a celebrity that died a so called “untimely” death. If you research the causes of many of the celebs mentioned above you will see that it is of such causes as cancer, heart disease, strokes etc. What ever happened to just dying from old age where the body just wears out or decays?

Is life really as simple as having good thoughts, eating right and exercising? Is there a mind body connection of which is completely bypassing us? All disease is a Dis Ease within the body that I feel that can be prevented or at least minimize with a few proactive and preventative measures. This is one reason why I can’t understand why Black America still tends to think Soul Food should be a staple diet. (but that’s another post)

Yes, life is simple and we complicate it. Almost every so called negative thing that has ever happened to me has been self-imposed. I’ve made bad choices when I knew better. It’s as if I almost can’t stand for things to be going well for me. Has this happened to you?

It certainly was the case with Teddy Pendergrass. In the early 80′s Teddy was the S%^! and he could do no wrong. Women drooled over his sweaty towels at his “For Women’s Only” concerts. He sold over 10 million records in less than a decade. But in 1982 Teddy wrecked his Rolls-Royce when he hit a guardrail and eventually ran into two trees. His licensed was suspended for two unpaid parking tickets at the time he was driving and his passenger was later found to be a transsexual nightclub performer.

The previous week he had wrecked his Maserati. Alcohol was discounted as being the cause of the wreck but all kinds of rumors surfaced around the transsexual passenger. Again my point is life is simple but we complicate it. You own a Maserati and a Rolls Royce but you don’t pay your parking tickets. You’re married with four kids but you ride around late at night with a transsexual. These are just thoughts that make you go hmmmmm.

I’m not judging here or trying to single out Teddy but its just an illustration of how we go to great lengths to complicate our lives. Teddy was never quite the same Teddy Bear post accident that he was before it occurred. He was still a dynamic performer and his music will be with us forever. It just makes you wonder what are we all capable of when we just keep it simple and do what we know to do. How better would our lives be if we were on point daily?

Here’s to Teddy

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