Don’t Take Life for Granted

By Jason Criddle

Don’t Take Life for Granted

I never imagined I would spend three months of my life in a hospital. I never thought I would have to have my intestines rebuilt, or wear an ileostomy bag. I never thought I would go seven full weeks without a bowel movement, or that one day I would be so proud of myself for doing something so simple that most people never think twice about. Everybody poops, just like the original book and my parody book say… but when you can’t, part of you is taken away from you.

Most people will never know what it’s like to have their abdomen split open. Most people will never know what it’s like to fight for your life. To feel your body start to fail, to go septic and lose your mind, to develop a hematoma and not know if you’ll even wake up the next day. Things just kept stacking and stacking and I never thought the nightmare would end.

I know what it’s like to not know if you will wake up the next day. And I’ll never take any of it for granted again.

Even from that hospital bed, I kept working. I kept building Ryker. I kept running Jason Criddle & Associates and SmartrHoldings. I kept the Carbon App moving forward with my partner Shaz Khan. I talked to my developers, SEO specialists, and designers from my hospital room; with heart monitors beeping in the background and nurses walking in and out. Shaz would stop by the hospital for meetings, and I’d have to dismiss him mid-conversation while my nurses or I changed dressings or emptied my ileostomy bag.

I had meetings with my banker, and even someone from JP Morgan’s wealth management team came to bring me lunch and talk about managing assets. Friends from the Porsche Club stopped by to check on me. I even befriended a man online from another car group who built a six-billion-dollar company that Microsoft later acquired. He reached out to offer encouragement after some posts on Facebook and said I inspired him. We have a lunch date setup soon.

I never stopped. Because when you’re responsible for people… when your family, your employees, and your investors depend on you, you don’t have the luxury of stopping.

Life in the Hospital

 

Three months in a hospital room changes you.

When you’re used to running multiple businesses, mentoring entrepreneurs, and building software every day, being confined to a bed feels like losing yourself. I watched 80 pounds of hard-earned muscle disappear. I looked in the mirror and didn’t see the same man anymore. Just tubes, scars, and bandages where strength used to be.

You start to notice all the little things you once took for granted. Walking to the kitchen, taking a shower without help, feeling the sun on your skin when you are literally confined to a floor in the hospital for months and can’t risk going outside because of infections. Sure you have windows… but it’s not the same when you can’t go outside and breathe in fresh air 

You realize that health is the only real wealth we have.

There were nights when I didn’t know if I would make it until morning. I had to say goodbye to my family more times than I want to remember. I missed three months at home with my four-year-old son. When you’re used to spending every day together: taking walks, letting him climb all over you, carrying him on your shoulders… and suddenly you’re just a face he visits for thirty minutes at a time, it breaks something inside you.

He stopped recognizing me for a while. Stopped running into the room yelling “Daddy!” the way he used to. And that… that hurt worse than the surgeries or recovery ever could.

Working Through the Pain

Even then, I kept working. I kept going.

While others might have shut down, I knew that quitting wasn’t an option. There were employees who depended on me. Projects that were already too far along to pause. Contracts, deadlines, and dreams that couldn’t wait.

When you’re an entrepreneur, you don’t just get to turn off life because things get hard. Pain doesn’t excuse responsibility. It doesn’t matter if you’re recovering from surgery or sitting in a hospital bed with an IV in your arm. When you’ve built something that people count on, you keep showing up.

And that’s exactly what I did. I was signing documents, answering emails, and brainstorming features for DOMINAIT and Smartr from a hospital bed. We had already committed to a January 1st alpha launch for both Carbon and DOMINAIT.ai, and that deadline wasn’t going anywhere.

Hospitals run on clocks. So does business.

A Second Chance

The man who walked into this hospital died on an operating table. The man who survived came out different.

The surgeries that saved me didn’t just remove dying tissue from my body. They stripped away my ego, my impatience, and my tendency to take life for granted. The entire ordeal made me start over with a new appreciation for life. For family. For pain. 

Yes… for pain. It might sound weird, but getting to experience blacking out when standing up because of dehydration and low blood pressure, having your blood drawn 120 times, having veins collapse and explode; these are all things I became grateful for. Fighting for your life and accepting your death is a superpower most will never get to experience. But I did.

I’ve been humbled in ways I never thought possible. I’ve seen how fragile life really is. I’ve learned that you can lose everything. When you lose your strength, your comfort, even your identity, but you still keep building, still keep creating, still keep loving.. it turns you into something else. 

Unstoppable.

When you’ve been that close to death, you realize just how precious every moment is. And how much of life most people waste worrying about the wrong things. We chase money, titles, and recognition. But none of that matters when you’re staring at a ceiling tile wondering if you’ll ever see your family again.

The real measure of success is perseverance. It’s the ability to keep going when your body, your mind, and your circumstances all tell you to stop. Give up. Give in. Die.

My mom who I lost in 2021 came to visit me at least 3 times and told me I could come to heaven with her if I wanted to. And as much as I miss my mom, and as great as the release of pain sounded, I knew I had a family to raise. I still had a legacy to build. I love you mom, but I’m not done yet.

Don’t Take Anything for Granted

There are a hundred things we do every day that we never think twice about. Getting out of bed. Walking to the bathroom. Eating real food. Taking a deep breath without pain.

You don’t realize how sacred those moments are until you can’t do them.

If there’s one thing I want people to take away from my experience, it’s this: Don’t take life for granted. Don’t wait for tragedy to remind you of what matters. Seriously.. think about what matters. And go hug it and hold it dear.

If you’re healthy, take care of yourself. If you have people you love, cherish them. And if you’ve been blessed with a vision, a business, or a dream, don’t waste it.

Because there will come a day when you won’t be able to do what you do now. There will come a day when time runs out. And when that happens, you’ll either look back knowing you gave everything you had, or you’ll wish you had done more.

I got my second chance. Most people don’t.

Keep Going

Running a company while recovering from surgeries, infections, and endless hospital routines isn’t easy. But I’ve learned that easy isn’t what we’re here for.

When life tests you, it’s not punishing you. If anything, I’d say it’s refining you. Every scar, every setback, every sleepless night is part of your new story.

You can stop when things go wrong. Or you can keep moving forward. And if you keep moving, life has a funny way of rewarding you for it.

So if you’re going through something right now, whether it’s illness, heartbreak, failure, or doubt, you just have to keep going. If you’ve fallen, get back up. If you’re tired, rest, but don’t quit.

When you’re an entrepreneur or a leader, you don’t just work for yourself. You work for everyone who believes in you. For your team. For your family. For the people who look up to you and the ones who depend on what you build.

Enjoy life. Appreciate every second. But never stop building.

Because when you come out the other side.. when you realize just how strong you really are, you’ll soon see all the pain, all the loss, all the struggle… was never punishment.

It was preparation. It was God or the universe or whatever you believe getting you ready for the blessings that are sitting just on the other side of the pain.