HASSAN PAIGE, A 54-year-old behavioral-data analyst, was 12 when his father discovered that an employee at their family deli in Philadelphia had been stealing from them.
“One of the guys from the neighborhood that was a customer,” Paige says, “said to my father, ‘Mr. Paige, you’re not upset? If that was me, I would have done this, that, and the other thing to them if they stole from me.’ And I remember what my father said like it was yesterday. He said, ‘What am I going to get upset about? It already happened. I can’t change that. The best thing I can do now is figure out how it’s not going to happen to me again.’ ” These sage words would prove prophetic for Paige in 2019 when he suffered a heart attack.
“I was in my basement home gym, working out like any other day. In the middle of a set of bench presses, I felt a tightening in my chest. I’ve been working out long enough to know that this didn’t feel like the normal exertion I feel. Still, I tried to work through it, but it progressively intensified, to the point where I couldn’t make it up the second flight of stairs to our bedroom. My wife, thankfully, was at the top of the stairs, and she could tell immediately that something was wrong.”
Something was very wrong. Paige suffered a “widow-maker” heart attack, in which the largest artery in the heart, responsible for carrying 50 percent of the blood supply to your cardiac muscles, is blocked. Paige’s wife called an ambulance. Paramedics arrived and performed lifesaving measures at his home and during the ride to the ER. Throughout the process, he was declared clinically dead. Twice.
“The next thing I knew, I woke up in a hospital bed. Eight hours had passed. My wife was there, my father was there.” Doctors had placed two stents in his mid-left anterior descending artery. Paige had survived the near unsurvivable, the docs said, because he was lucky. But he didn’t feel that way—and soon depression set in.
“I’ve been working out regularly since I was 30 years old. I’m disciplined in my diet. I don’t smoke. Even at the family cookouts, I was mindful of what I ate. I was doing everything I was supposed to do.”
Adding to Paige’s cognitive dissonance was a post-surgery stint in cardiac rehab, a necessary intervention if he was to prevent another heart attack, let alone return to regular exercise.
“While I was glad to be alive, it was hard to be around people decades older than me with the same or similar conditions. Not to disparage anyone there, I called the place Heaven’s Waiting Room to myself,” he says. “Not only could I not figure out how this had happened to me, but I felt like I had somehow let my wife and son down. I found myself keeping them at an arm’s length because I had rationalized that if this happened again, I wanted it to be less difficult for them if they had to let me go.”
But Paige was his father’s son, and those words from him when he was young echoed louder and louder in his ears: “The best thing I can do now is figure out how it’s not going to happen to me again.”
Although Paige has never subscribed to a particular faith, he was raised in a religious household, and spirituality did speak to him. Remembering his father’s words led him to Buddhism’s philosophies, particularly those about being present and the phrase “In order to die well, one must live well.”
Once Paige began practicing Buddhism regularly, he went back to his home gym, what he calls “returning to the scene of the crime.” But he’s not just hoisting plates anymore. He’s added yoga once a week as a means of active meditation. He takes five medications daily to manage his blood pressure, blood sugar, and cholesterol, and he sees his cardiologist every six months.
To clear his head, he takes his older dog, along with a recent younger rescue—with a heart condition and daily medications of its own—on walks near their home, and in the process he discovered a nature trail nearby. After bringing the dogs back, he takes walks on this trail alone, listening to the rustle of the leaves and branches above, feeling the dirt and rocks shift beneath his feet, and finding bird feathers and deer tracks on his path.
“My heart attack occurred on October 28, 2019,” Paige says. “If you know anything about numerology, those numbers add up to 1-1-1, a number that equates to some as rebirth, while others see it as a signal from the universe that it’s time to embark on a new chapter in life.”
In many ways, Paige has experienced a rebirth. He’s reprioritized what’s important in his life and has become more present than ever through Buddhism. He’s restored the close-knit nature of his family life. He’s even returned to creating art with pastel chalk, an activity that brings him great joy and peace. Paige lives each day as though it may be his last, and he endeavors to spread that message to others. To be a guide.
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