“Understand, you’ve got to live in the present ,observe all the good things in your life and others around you. Julian would not want you to live your life with bitterness and upset, it eats away with you and drains your life slowly but surely. You must rise to the occasion and accept the beauty around you. I believe in you.” Those were the last words of late Young and the Restless actor, Kristoff St. John, prior to his death on February 3rd. Kristoff St. John died from an apparent suicide after a long struggle with bipolar disorder. Mia St. John, Kristoff’s ex-wife, told ET that Kristoff called her drunk and disoriented going on rants about their late son “He said, ‘Julian is at the door I gotta get the door,'” she said. “(He) said, ‘OK, let’s talk to Julian, bring Julian in.’ Julian came in and he said, ‘Julian is gonna take me for a walk now.”
Julian St. John died at the age of 24 in 2014 while seeking treatment at a psychiatric facility in Long Beach, California; he too suffered from mental illness.
Hearing the stories of two broken men, victims of the lethal combination of mental illness and the hardships of life, one is forced to acknowledge the importance of taking your mental health seriously. When we hear about these stories of these wounded hearts and these impaired minds, we often think that their reality is far from our own. We neglect their pain because we cannot relate to them….yet. The term “yet” is meant to encourage us all to take into consideration the fluidity of the psyche.
We should all look at the Kristoff family as a warning to what our lives can become if we do not learn to live in and appreciate the greatness surrounding us. Walking through a college campus one can see so many happy faces, but past those happy faces one can see so many broken souls. So many of us, as college students, are forced to be okay all the time. We are forced to plan for these distant futures, which subsequently leads to a neglect of the present.
Kristoff St. John’s final words are something we should all live by: “Understand, you’ve got to live in the present observe all the good things in your life and others around you.” He died knowing that his pain was rooted in all these things he could not change. Presumably, he lived in his past hurt, which blinded him from his present reality.
Let us all look to Kristoff as a reminder that yesterday has already happened, and tomorrow may never come. The only thing that we ever have is right now. Appreciate all things good in your life and understand that while your future is important, it should never overpower your ability to be happy today. May we honor Kristoff St. John, by letting all things negative go and living to fight another day no matter the circumstances and most importantly: may we bask in the beauty of the present.
In the words of the great writer Eckhart Tolle: “Life is Now. There was never a time when your life was not now, nor will there ever be. Secondly, the now is the only point that can take you beyond the limited confines of the mind. It is your only point of access into the timeless and formless realm of being.”