Sometimes you have to hit rock bottom to make realizations about your life. By this, I mean, sometimes you have to break down on the side of the road two hours from school and two hours from home on the coldest day of the month to make realizations about life.

My day started very typically. I got up, ate breakfast, and threw on a sweatshirt. After loading up my car, I hit the road for home.

Now, the back story — my car has been having some problems. Not like oh my car needs new brake pads, like my car won't go 50 up the mountains and the interior lights don't turn on at night sort of issues. Although this might have stopped some people from traveling home, I had faith in my car.

However, my car did not have faith in itself. Two hours into my drive, I started to hear a weird clicking noise. Next thing I know my steering wheel is locked and I'm pulling over to the side of the road. Now, my car is profusely smoking. This is the end. My car would never drive again.

By the time I call my parents, a state trooper is pulling up behind me to help me out. He kindly called me a tow truck and offered to let me sit in his car to get out of the cold.

Once in the tow truck, I had a nice conversation with a veteran who had been driving a tow truck but recently bought a hotel. He told me a story about a kid from Richmond (about an hour and a half from where we are) who broke down and parents wouldn't pick him up. This man drove this kid home and charged him nothing. In this moment, I realized how lucky I was to have people that would drive 5 hours in total that day just to pick me up.

The towing company was connected to an auto shop, so that is where I went. This auto shop was filled with the nicest people I will ever meet. They weren't fancy or poised. They were just normal, kind people.

Unfortunately, these were the people who told me I needed to start looking for a new car, but despite that, they were overly nice and welcoming people.

This was hands down one of the worst days of my life, yet every single person I encountered was abundantly kind.

At the end of the day, even in the worst kind of experiences, there are still good takeaways.

I have people in my life that will come from anywhere to come pick me up. Kindness is something we can all work on, but at the end of the day, happiness does not come out of millions of dollars and brand new cars. The happiest people in life are those that are willing to be kind to others.