If you ever heard one of your grandparent's friends passing away, it is sad but unfortunately, seems expected at their age. What is not expected is our own closest friends and colleagues passing away. We happen to think we are invincible. I hate to be blunt but, we are not. We may not survive everything. We may run into trouble and get damaged, broken and hurt. It is crazy to think of that concept, but it is important to be conscious of this idea as we get older. In my opinion it is important to remember life can be gone in the blink of an eye at any age.
There are forces in the universe that we cannot control. The number one leading cause of death of teens in the United States is motor vehicle accidents. It has been reiterated by our parents and friends and school leaders to never drink and drive. Never get in a car with people who have been drinking. Never text while you are driving. Believe it or not, these things still happen. As amazing as it would be if we could, we cannot prevent everyone from doing these dangerous things.
These accidents happen, and they can happen to the people closest to you. The worst part is, we ALL know this, but do we actually realize it? No. We never realize it till it happens to someone you love. I personally never realized it till it happened to someone I loved dearly; A young friend who was so close to making it to his 20th birthday. He was actually in one of these kinds of accidents we have been talking and learning about for years. Who would've thought, right? A close friend, someone I spent making memories and jokes with would be gone, just like that.
I am definitely not the only one who has dealt with a tragic loss of a close friend or family member. I am positive there are many of us out there who have been through this kind of unexpected loss, whether it was an accident or an illness. It sucks!
My point is that we need to be aware that every day we are given is a gift. We do not realize that one day it could happen to someone we know and care so much about. It can happen to someone YOU know and care about! What they preached to us at all those annoying safety assemblies in high school is actual reality. It can happen.
All us college students like to experiment and complain about other people and what they are doing and how it bothers us. But let’s put this into perspective: we are blessed to wake up and have another day, so try and use it for a better purpose.
Try and better yourself every day
Make a goal for yourself every day. It can be something so simple as to making it to class or going to the gym and getting all your homework done. Doing this gives you something to strive for, even if it is just making it to campus. You’ll be proud of yourself.
Forget about that situation that upset you
This is easier said than done, I get it. This situation may have lasted a brief moment, but don’t let that moment ruin the rest of your day. You have 86,400 seconds in every day. If a situation ruins 100 seconds of the day, don't just throw the rest of them away. Keep living, don't sweat the small things in life.
Forgive the people who have done wrong things to you
“Forgive but never forget.” I don’t think you need to forget but forgiving people tends to release the weight off my shoulders, so I do recommend it. We are in charge of our own happiness and holding grudges is only negative energy that can withhold you from that joy.
Tell your friends you love them!!
Like I have said before, we are not invincible. We are college students, we do wild things. In the scary thought of never knowing what is going to happen today or the next day, always tell your friends you love them and how much you appreciate having them in your life. Nothing bad comes from this!
Give a quick call or text to someone you care about or are thinking about
Sometimes you lose touch with people because you both are so busy. Nothing is wrong with contacting them to say you are thinking about them. So what, it’s been a couple months? You were close friends once. Just catch up.
Ask your friends or people you encounter how their day is going
Everyone says the “how are you?” but really, are you going to listen to what they say? Try to. Try to engage in conversation. People can surprise you with some of the things they may have to say. It can be a really interesting story or even really funny story. Either way it can help make someone else's day a little bit better, so why not.
It is never easy to touch on the topic of death and it is something we never really would want to talk about. It is uncomfortable. But it is so unfortunate how common it has become to lose young kids. Life is out of our control, so take advantage of the time we are all blessed to have.