Two seconds can be a lifetime. Your entire life can sometimes pass before your eyes in two seconds. If you have ever had a close encounter or accident, the world can seem like it is standing still while your life flashes ahead. In two seconds, a vehicle moving at 70 mph will travel 204 feet. If you see something in the road and you blink, you have just traveled 102 feet before you have even reacted. Two seconds can mean the difference between life and death several times over.
We never appreciate time as much as when we have a close call. A close call (maybe even less than two seconds) brings us face to face with death. Your heart will beat so hard that it may feel like you have just finished a marathon. After a close call, many people go into a state of shock even without any injuries. Several years ago while on a trip to London, I stepped off the curb and looking the wrong direction (it appears buses in England drive on the left side of the street), I stepped in front of a moving bus. Karen pulled me back just before the bus would have flattened me. My heart was beating a mile a minute and I could not believe I was still alive. Karen’s admonition to be more careful mattered very little to me at this time.
After a close call is over and you have calmed down, you may reflect on how precarious life really is and perhaps on what you could do to use it more wisely. None of us need these traumas in our life, but having had several of them myself, I appreciate life a great deal more. I seldom take death lightly or for granted and while I am not morbid about it, I live each day with the possibility of death in my mind. I think these events have made me more appreciative of the brief candle that life is.
Have you ever had a two second close call? What do you remember about the event? How did it change your life? Do you take life for granted or do you live each day fully knowing it may be your last?
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