Life, Death, and all the Trappings
I was talking with a friend the other day about 9/11. I told her about my classmate, Peter, and about how I thought he would have been one of the people who jumped rather than burnt alive in the crash. “Because he was so smart,” I said, “He was a physics major in college. He would have thought it better to fall to his own death, taking a chance of falling onto something, despite the height, rather than suffer from burning alive.”
“Which tower was he in?” she asked.
I didn’t know. My initial response was, “does it really matter?” I’ve later come to find out that Peter was “Tower 1, 96th floor, Marsh & McLennan.” Now, there’s an odd label I would never have given him.
As I was driving to work today, there was this annoying lady in the middle lane, driving some really big SUV. I put my blinker on, not wanting to cut her off, and start to move into the middle lane, clearly in front of her. She races up to me, to where I’m faced with the choice of either really cutting her off, or letting her pass. I opted to let her pass, but then she wouldn’t. She was just busy driving next to me, leaving me out in the left lane. So, when I finally cut in behind her, I pulled all the way over to the right lane. She pulled in behind me, and then me, wanting to turn into work, puts on my blinker and slows down. I’m sure she didn’t like this manuever, but I had her trapped.
Today’s blog was going to be about how bad Austin drivers can be. But, with the help of Peter, I’ve realized that we are all trapped. It’s how we choose to deal with our circumstances, our reaction, our response, that dictates our freedom. At times anyway, it seems like our only purpose is to respond, to react, to counter-point an action. And sometimes this can make all the difference in the world.
Until next time…
