This I Believe… “Not taking life for granted”
I strongly believe in the ethical value of not taking life for granted. A saying that is tossed around, but not always truly absorbed. People usually say, “don’t take life for granted” when someone is being ungrateful or they’re explaining something. However, I feel that it is important to live everyday with this in the back of your mind. The truth is that we never know what will happen today, tomorrow, or in the future.
Flash back to the summer of 2005… Have you ever been so scared that you can barely even move? That moment when all your muscles are screaming, “GO!” but your body stays frozen. August 11, 2005 was the first time I had this feeling. It was the first day of our family vacation and we were riding ATVs through the mountains of Montana. Just as my dad and I were coming around the bend, I saw a bloody figure emerging from the dust. It was my eldest sister. I looked and saw that my sisters ATV had hit a rock and flipped off the road into a ditch lined with barbed wire. Then I saw my middle sister tangled up in the barbed wired fence. Everything seemed slow motion after that point. My sisters were rushed to the hospital. One of them had cuts on her face and arm. Where as, my other sister was in critical condition, with her neck cut completely open from ear to ear because of the barbed wire.
This was the moment when I realized that an individual should never take life for granted. I had never really thought about how valuable life was until my two sisters lives were at stake. It made me think about all the things they still needed to do: go to college, get a job, get their first apartment, get married, etc. What if they never had the chance to do all these things? Was their life lived well enough?
As we waited in the hospital to hear whether my sisters would be okay or not, I began to think. Have I been living my life to the fullest and cherishing every day? I thought “no!” I made a promise to myself from that day on to appreciate everyday and optimize on every opportunity.
Finally, the doctors came out and told us that both my sisters were stable. My sister that cut her neck received over 1,000 stitches but made a full recovery. This experience helped me realized that I should never take life for granted. Every decision/choice I have made has helped me better understand and respect this value. Although I was only in fourth grade, I kept that promise I made ever since. I still carry and use this core value to guide my everyday life. I consider this value as a kind of guideline when making decisions. Remembering the value of life, forces me to take chances on things because life is unpredictable and it is important to take risks. In the end this core value has shaped me into the person I am today.
Great.