“That will never happen to me.”
Six words. Those six words comfort us in the scariest of times. Those six words give us hope that all will turn out okay. Those six words make us feel invincible.
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Those six words are a lie.
Two weeks ago, I was in a car accident. Not a small fender bender. Not a car accident where I could just shake it off and handle the situation calmly, with dry eyes and a soft smile. Not a car accident that I was able to drive my car away from the scene. But a car accident where I collided into the car in front of me going 50 mph, a sensation similar to that of running into a brick wall. A car accident where both airbags went off, the driver one burning the inside of my arms and giving me the feeling of a broken nose. A car accident that made me sit there, the tears instantly forming in my eyes, thinking to myself, “it happened.”
Naturally, as a society, we go through life with the mindset that nothing bad will ever happen to us. We walk down the street, without a car in the world. Spotting homeless individuals sitting outside in the cold, begging for spare change so that they can afford to buy a cheeseburger from McDonalds. We sit on our couches, in the security of our own home, as we watch the news of yet another rape at that big university across the state. Yet, what do we think?
“That will never happen to me.”
Sad thing about it is, that it could. Anything can happen to anyone. The man at the corner of the street didn’t wake up one day and say, “Please, let me be poor. Let me have no food for my children and no home to keep me warm.” The women that are striped of their clothing and are violated didn’t ask those men, “Please, will you rape me. Will you scar me for the rest of my entire life.”
We DO NOT ask for bad things to happen! They just do, no matter what. That is life. That is the ugly, nasty, truth about life. We need to stop living with the idea that we are “always safe” or “untouchable”. We cannot control what happens to us, BUT we can control how we let it affect us. We can control if we break down, or if we give up. We can control if it makes us bitter or pessimistic. We can control if we are a better human being because of the problems we are faced with. We are born with hearts to love the people who are suffering. We are born with the strength to keep preserving even when we want to give up. We are born with brains to stay smart in different situations. We are born human because we are not mean to be superheroes.
I am not invincible. No one is. I am human.
And at the end of the day, that is all that matters.
At the end of the day, that is all I can be.
