How A Car Crash Can Teach You To Appreciate Life

Photo by Michael Jin on Unsplash

Normally I shut the shop at nine on the dot. Instead, an unruly customer meant I left half an hour later.

No problem I thought, I’d make it back home in no time.

Every day I cycled to and from work. The same route. Morning or night. That night, the roads were quieter than normal. Those thirty minutes made a big difference.

Two minutes from home, I noticed a car in the distance. A fork in the road lay in front of me. The car could carry on and pass me by, or take the fork and cross my path.

The driver chose the latter option. I smashed into the side of the car. Dazed and confused, I picked myself and dusted myself down.

I was a lucky boy. A few cuts and bruises were all I had to show for the collision. Had the crash happened a few second earlier, things might have been different.

That night, I realised how fragile life is. I could have been seriously injured. The incident made me reflect on where I was going, what I was doing.

Working in a job I hated. Postponing my dreams because I was too scared to chase them. In a funny way, the collision was the wake-up call I needed. It forced me to take charge of my life.

Four months later, I quit my job and fulfilled my dream of spending a year in Australia. Would I have had the courage to do this without the crash?

Maybe. Maybe not.

This one incident taught me the importance of taking charge of your life. The trick life plays on you is to make you feel like it lasts forever when it can end in an instant.

Life is precious. Make the most of it, because when it’s gone, it’s gone.