bee stings, and the meaning of life

Sometimes, things don't go the way you want; you miss a bus, you forget to buy toilet paper... whatever. Everyone deals with these little things everyday. But what do you do when something catastrophic happens? What do you do when the person who you thought you'd spend the rest of your life with up and walks out the door? What do you do when one of your best friends is a victim in a horrific car accident? What do you do when the man who made you what you are (both literally and figuratively), who has literally known you since the second you were born, is taken from you far too early?

These scenarios all seem way too unlikely to happen randomly, out of the blue, don't they? Fairly recently, I was like most people; growing up in the suburbs, I had a latent, subtle feeling of invincibility. Now, I know what a lot of you are saying: "I've never felt invincible; I know that I have limitations on everything that I do." But be honest with yourselves... do you really think that you're in any imminent danger right now? Will you be in danger by the end of the day? What about your friends and family? Of course not; they're all working, or taking classes, and then they're going home to probably have an uneventful night. One of them might be a little sick, one might stub their toe after dinner, and one of them might go out to a club, but no one's anticipating anything of any significance to happen.

Now think about what might happen if one of the more intense "catastrophic" events that I described earlier happened to you or a loved one. How would you feel? I don't know about you, but I, aside from succumbing to overwhelming grief, would immediately have serious thoughts about my own mortality . How do you deal with everyday functioning when someone that's been as close to you as your right hand is suddenly chopped out of your life? How do you drive to work in the morning when you know that, on a street very much like the one you're driving down, someone deeply close to your heart has lost the ability walk? Not only do these things frighten/scare/anger you when you first hear about them, but they continue to hurt everytime you're reminded of them. If, through some unfortunate circumstance, you were to experience more than one of these tragedies in a short period of time, how would you cope with them?

For many people (myself included), I think the initial reaction would be to just stop. Stop working. Stop going out. Stop reading. Stop doing whatever it is that makes you happy. The overwhelming nature of it all would just be too much. And you might even be able to make some sort of depressing rationalization for everything: "Well, if I get hit by a car tomorrow, what's the point of me working extra long hours at the office today?" "If there's a chance that I might just suddenly collapse from a heart attack in a couple years, why should I even apply to grad school?"

And honestly, if someone had presented me with those hypotheticals, I'm not sure how I'd respond. I mean, you can say "Shut up, that's just really depressing talk" or "Don't say things like that, you don't really mean that". But you really can see how someone might want to just slink off into nothingness, realizing that drastic, monumental changes can happen to you that are 100% out of your control. It's a pretty terrifying realization.

But then, I had an epiphany (not an epiphany at all, actually... I read an article on ESPN, hahaha). And with this epiphany, I realized the meaning of life. Yes, I said it, the meaning of life. And it resides in the fact that although huge, devastating things can happen, life is really all about the little things. Here's a little excerpt from the article (it's a little football-oriented; deal with it):

"When I was younger, a coach asked a team I was on, 'Have any of you ever been run over by an elephant or struck by lightning?' No one raised their hand. Then he asked us, 'Has anyone been stung by a bee?' And we all raised our hands. 'See,' he said, 'life is all about the little things.' Everyone worries about the big things, but life is about the little things. It's not about the Super Bowl but all the tiny little things you do in the process of trying to win that Super Bowl.

"When you go through the things I have, that idea really hits home: Nothing is guaranteed except this very moment, except these little things you're doing from moment to moment, so you better make them count. So I'm gonna ride this thing until the wheels fall off, until someone taps me on the shoulder and says, 'Son, that's it, you gotta go home.' And that's the feeling on this team, too. We're gonna ball till the wheels fall off."

So yes, physical and emotional trauma happens. It's terrible. But here's the thing; what makes losing someone hurt so much is the fact that we were able to have so many good memories with them. So, yes it still hurts me more than anything to think about the painful experiences that I've had in the not-too-distant past. But I know that life isn't about dwelling on the pain that you've felt. It's about sharing memories of the good times. And its about continuing to make more and more good memories, because at the end of the day, that's all you really have.

And quite frankly, that's all you need.

(here's a link to today's inspiration... this dude's a beast, and my hero of the week)