What I Learned From The Day I Almost Died

I was at work one Saturday morning, everything was normal.

A message buzzed on my phone, when I read it I began to panic.

I’ve gotten alerts on my phone like this before, they are usually for flash floods or amber alerts. I had never seen this one before.

The message read: Warning ballistic missile inbound take cover this is not a drill.

That was it.

I immediately began to think of what to do.

The restaurant where I worked had a basement where we store and prepare food. That seemed like a safe place.

But what if the building collapsed on us and we were stuck, only to starve to death?

After thinking for a few minutes I realized there wasn’t much use in trying to avoid it.

So instead of running I stood there and made my peace with God.

I started to think about my life. I remembered hearing people say they have regrets, things they wish they had done.

I didn’t feel that way, I was oddly at peace with my death.

I thought about calling my family to say goodbye but decided not to worry them.

I thought it was weird I was dying at work. But then again I did work a lot. I missed out on fun and parties for work, so it was kind of fitting that I die at work.

The kitchen faced two giant windows that gave a full view of one of the busiest streets in Chinatown.

Usually, there would be a constant flow of people and cars parading in front of those windows. Today, no one.

The only movement was from a bird flying by.

I started thinking about that little bird, he had no idea what was about to happen.

Animals can sense when things in nature aren’t right, that’s why they freak out before an earthquake.

But in the case of a ballistic missile, a man-made killing machine, they have no natural detection system.

The poor little guy didn’t know he was about to die.

My pity for the bird suddenly made me question my thinking.

Here I am standing around thinking about how I’m going to die, obsessing over my life and all the things I can’t do.

Caught up in the things that we think are important and meaningful. Meanwhile, that bird is just living his life.

Not fearful of what might happen, not worried about when he will die. He’s too busy living.

It was around this time that I looked at the clock.

It had been about ten minutes since the message was sent, and so far, no boom. So I went back to cutting onions.

It took over thirty minutes for a second message to be sent.

This message informed us the first message was an error and assured us everything was ok.

At that point, we all took a deep breath and let out a sigh of relief.

It turns out my life was never actually in danger, but this was close enough to a near-death experience for me to have an epiphany.

When I get stressed out or start to worry I think about that little bird.

We’re all going to die eventually, so we have to live while we can.

We, love our big beautiful brains, and I agree we should think and evaluate our lives, but we still have to live.

I have a habit of overthinking and worrying which can keep me from living life to the fullest.

From now on I’m going to be like that little bird.

Aware of my mortality, while focusing on living my life.

Thanks for reading. Here are some other articles I wrote if you want to read more.