5 Lessons I Learned After Being Hit By A Car
Good Day LinkedIN!
It's time for another HUMP DAY WEDNESDAY!!
I know what you must be thinking….
?“Bey Rowshan where you been Man? We een hear from you since days was cone!”
?Well I’ve been right here. Well not here, but you know….?HERE!! And I’ve been doing some thinking and I wanted to share with you some things I learned that time when I?Almost?DEAD!
Now I know what you're probably thinking,?"Exaggerate much Rowshan?! It couldn't have been that bad!"
But when I say?"I Almost?Dead", I literally mean that?"I Almost?Died!"
You:?"WHAT!! YOU ALMOST DIED? HOW?!!"
The truth is that how is not that important, but because I know you like?TEA?almost as much as I like to?SIP IT, I will share mine with you. Now if you ask me what happened, I would recount it by saying that I was literally?"KNOCKED INTO NEXT WEEK!". I went to bed at home on?Friday?night and somehow I woke up in the hospital on?Sunday?afternoon with no recollection of how I got there. If you ask the nurse who was at my bed when I woke up, she would say,?"I don't know what happened. I just know that he was brought here in an ambulance."?(SOME NURSE!!)?And if you ask the officer from the scene who visited me in the hospital, he would say that I was hit by a driver who did not stop and left me on the side of the road?to?DEAD!?(WHY DID HE SAY "TO DEAD" LIKE THAT? ISN'T?DEAD?PRESENT TENSE?)?Anyway, to make a?LONG STORY SHORT, I was involved in a?Hit & Run Accident, where I was?HIT?and the driver?RAN!
Needless to say. it was an experience that changed my perspective on?Life. After waking up and finally taking in what had actually happened to me, I asked the question everyone who survives such an incident asks themselves,?"WHAT HAPPENED TO MY TOOTH?!"?Ok. So maybe everyone doesn't ask what happened to their tooth, but I couldn't help but wonder,?"Where did it go? And could it have been saved? I mean do emergency responders just make it a habit to go to scenes and leave body parts unaccounted for?"
The entire situation was very?DISCONCERTING!
Me:?"DISCONCERTING? Rowshan, How can something be?DISCONCERTING?if you didn't go to a?CONCERT?"
Also Me:?"Rowshan, I don't think that's what?DISCONCERTING?means"
Me:?"Oh. Ok. Can we finish our?TEA?"
Also Me:?"We were making?TEA? I thought we were writing?"
The second question I asked, is probably the?"ACTUAL"?question everyone who survives such an incident asks themselves?"WHY DID I?SURVIVE?". And, I'm sure we've all been here at some point. Whether we survived an accident or not. We've questioned our purpose. We've questioned what we should be doing with our?Lives. We've wondered,?"IS THERE MORE THAT I CAN OR SHOULD BE DOING?". And the truth is, there is always?MORE. Very few of us live up to the actual potential we were born with. In fact, if we lived up to it, it wouldn't be called potential it would be called something else.
Despite never?UNLOCKING?the?Mystery of my Tooth?there were a few?TAKEAWAYS?I gathered from my accident that make up part of the?TEA?I would like to share with you! Hopefully, you got your cup while I was boiling the water via my ramble above.
My first?takeaway?might be a bit obvious, but I'll share it with you anyway....
1.)?Don't Get?HIT?By A Car!:?And I mean this both?LITERALLY?and?FIGURATIVELY!?FIRSTABLE, it's not as fun as it looks!
You:?"But Rowshan, being hit by a car doesn't look fun at all!"
Me:?"I know! And it's not even that much fun! You could?DEAD!"
You:?"Rowshan, why do you keep saying?DEAD?like that?"
Me:?"That's what he said!"
In?Life?there are many?VEHICLES?that threaten to?Knock?us off course. They can?Knock?us into?Tomorrow,?Knock?us into?Next Week,?Knock?us into?Next Year?and if we're not careful, they can?Knock?years away from our?Lives! We're happily on route to our?Goal?and an unforeseen emergency runs the intersection of?Proper Planning?and?Chaos,?T-BONING?us and sending us careening off the road of?Proper Planning?and down the street of?Chaos!
The truth is that no?VEHICLE?will?HIT?as hard as?Life. It's completely?UNCHARTED, completely?UNSCRIPTED, completely?UNCENSORED?and despite the fact that we write the stories of our own?Lives?it's a story of contributors who know nothing of our?Goals?and in some cases care nothing about them.
2.)?Nothing?Matters Until It's?Everything!:
You:?"Wait! What? What do you mean by that? How can?Nothing?be?Everything??Nothing?is?Nothing?right?"
Me:?“No....?Nothing?is?Everything?and?Everything?is actually?Nothing!?Everything?matters to someone and?Nothing?matters to?Everyone, because?Nothing?matters until it becomes our?Everything! Get it?”
You:?"No. No Rowshan I don't.?Talk English To Me!"
I think Lauren Hill said this best when she said,?"Everything Is Everything!"?What doesn't matter at all to us, matters immensely to someone else and what doesn't matter at all to someone else matters immensely to us, but there are many things that do not matter at all to anyone until it becomes?Everything?anyone has to lose. Even if that?Everything?is only one small thing.
You:?"Ohhhhh.... I still don't get it?!"
Ok.... Let me explain, every day we take it for granted that we wake up with all of our senses and with all of our faculties. We take it for granted that we will walk out of the door and that we will return home. And we take it for granted that our loved ones will do the same. In a way they mean?Nothing?to us until they become the very thing threatened to be taken away. And it is at that point that they become?Everything!
Health,?Sight,?Hearing,?Taste, even?Chewing?are all taken for granted until something changes and shows us just how significant they are. So when I say that?Nothing?matters until it's?Everything, I mean that what I learned is that?Nothing?is actually?Everything?simply because it needs?Everything?in order to exist!
You:?"Ok. You lost me again!"
Me:?"I know! I lost me too! But to put it simply?EVERYTHING MATTERS!"
I realised that it's not the big things we'll miss, but the little things.... And when you think about it, it's the little things that we will be missed for. In the?MICRO?they seem minute, but in the?MACRO?they are integral. If something happens to a loved one, we won't miss them because they paid all of the bills. That's part of the?MACRO. But we will miss them because they always left the light on until we got home. That's part of the?MICRO. When they did it, it meant?Nothing. But when it's gone, you suddenly realise that it meant?Everything. To spell it out some more, it means that they thought about you in a way that was threefold. They saw you as a part of their?Past, because they remembered you. They saw you as a part of their?Present?because they acted on that memory. They saw you as a part of their?Future?because they prepared for your return. The simple act of leaving the light on may have meant?Nothing?in that?MICRO?moment, but in the?MACRO?when you realise that they will never be here to do it again, it means?Everything!
3.)?Life?Goes On!:?I knew this before, but I understand it now!?Life?literally?Goes On!?Ok, so maybe it?ALMOST?didn't for me, but when I woke up, what felt like 2 maybe 3 hours, was almost 36 hours. And when I was given my phone, there were only 3 people who questioned my whereabouts, but all of my other groups?Carried On?their normal conversations. During the time I spent in the Hospital, the world?Carried On?outside. And during the weeks that I was out of office, work?Carried On?without me.?Life?Carried On?so well in fact, that by the end of that month, the entire?BAHAMAS?was facing?"A New Day!"?We had changed political parties and the world couldn't have been any wiser to what happened.... I mean, I almost?DEAD?for goodness sake!!
The truth is that absolutely?NO ONE,?IMPACTs?the world in such a way that?Life?literally stops at their passing. For those who are?Alive,?Life?simply?Goes On!?The world continues to?Turn! Time continues to?Tick! Days continue to be?Days?and nights continue to be?Nights. For our loved ones who are?Alive, things may change, they may even slow down, but in time, they continue.
So if the world doesn't stop for you, why should you stop for the world?
You:?"Mr. Jones, make it make sense please!"?*in my SADANAE voice*
Me:?“What I mean IIIIIISSSSS….?Life?around us doesn’t stop simply because?Life?within us does."
You:?“Lost again Rowshan!! Listen to your?*SADANAE voice*!!”
Me:?“What I mean is,?Life?within us doesn’t only stop when we take our last breath…. For some,?Life?stops long before that. But, we shouldn’t allow difficulties or setbacks to hold us back and put our?Life?on pause.”
In?Life?we are either heading for a?Crisis, going through a?Crisis?or coming out of a?Crisis. However, when we face a?Crisis, we shouldn’t allow it to stop us. We shouldn’t allow?DOUBT?or?FEAR?of?Failure?or even being?HIT?by a car to stop us from allowing our?Life?to?Go On!
4.)?Don't Let The Damage You See On The Outside Determine How You Feel On The Inside!:?I think this may have been the most vital lesson I learned during the whole experience. As you can imagine, when you get hit by a car and you almost?DEAD, you don't walk away without a scratch.
You:?"Rowshan, can you stop saying?"DEAD"?like that? It's not proper grammatical use of the word....Tanks!!"
Me:?"I know it's not, but it sounds funny and it's?IMPACTFUL!"
Anyway, back to the?TEA! The lesson here was simple, but grand! Many times we allow what we see on the outside to determine our choices and to?IMPACT?how we feel on the inside. In truth, we probably don't even realise that we are doing it, but we do it all the time.?FEAR?and?DOUBT?creep in because things don’t seem to be going our way. We didn’t get the referrals we wanted at work so we give up. We don’t get the position as fast as we wanted to, so we become complacent.?Life?doesn’t look the way we thought it would at 25 so we become discouraged. We allow all of these external factors to limit what we believe is possible for our?Lives. But to sound completely?“Cliché”,?“Life?is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to what happens.”
To put it another way, our?Lives?are 10% what happens to us and 90% how we think about what happened. For some reason I had never felt so much?FINALITY?in?Life?as I did after my accident. And no matter what I did, I couldn’t shake it. Every time I looked in the mirror or moved too much, the damage I felt and saw on the Outside,?impacted?what I felt on the Inside. However, it was coming to terms with this lesson that allowed me to truly move beyond the feeling of?FINALITY?that was so difficult to shake in the beginning.
5.)?Live?is a?Verb,?DEAD?is a?Noun:?Ok, so?DEAD?is probably an?Adjective, but?Noun?had less syllables. And this was perhaps the best lesson I learned....?Live!
Living?is an?ACTION! It’s something we do. It involves?Planning. It involves?Learning. It involves?Growing. It involves?Excelling, Overcoming?FEAR?and moving past?DOUBT. It involves all of the things we find difficult, but in the end allow us to?Live?a?Life?that won’t be described as?DEAD! So is your?Life?a?Verb?or is it a?Noun?
If your life is currently a?Noun, I encourage you to take?ACTION! What?Goals?have you been putting off? What?Dream?have you stopped chasing? What watered down version of?Life?have you settled for?
If you are not doing it,?LIVE?YOUR BEST?LIFE?now!!
Until Next Time….?Let's?STAY?ENGAGED!