On July 17, 2014 at 9pm, my sister did something that not only altered my appearance, but my paradigm concerning the future of my career. I was having a conversation with my girlfriend at the time, when my sister came barging in the room, insisting to talk to her. As I sat on my bed impatiently waiting to have my phone back from 14 year old Kendall, I grew impatient. I quickly said “Goodbye Kendall” and took my phone out of her hands. The 60 seconds after that are moments I will never forget. Kendall proceeded to throw a hard edged fifteen pound metal dumbbell on my bed to scare me. No big deal. What was a big deal, was the surface on which she threw it. Neither of us anticipated the bounce. The dumbbell flew off the mattress, lunging its weight directly into the orbital bone under my left eye. I wish I could write about how I pulled through, didn't shed a tear, and calmly handled the situation appropriately. Instead, I sobbed, screamed, and fell on the ground. By 9:45, I was in the ER and having CT scans on my facial bones and head. Lesson learned: weight of a 15 pound dumbbell is more than simply physical weight. The black bruises that set up shop under my eye taught me the weight of a situation and the unexpected outcomes of our actions.
Firstly, let me just clarify that I was in a serious amount of pain. My level of pain, however, did not match the severity of what had happened to me. Swelling was extending three quarters of an inch off my face, and bleeding. I simply assumed that I would put some ice on it and I would be fine. The weight of which I had scaled my pain was quite incorrect. Dazed from tears and adrenaline, I could barely make out the facade of my mom looking me in the eyes. “We're going to take you to the Emergency Room, okay?” My inner voice is thinking “What?” She then proceeded to tell me that where the dumbbell had landed, I could have easily broken the bone under my eye. I then began to sob. Unfortunately, what I had expected of my injury is equivalent to what young Americans are expecting of the unplanned decisions they are making. Too often in today's society, we replace long term outcomes with immediate gratification. Our internet, mail, and businesses are littered with “Free Trials” that are never free, Nigerian Princes asking you to give him your banking information so he can deposit money into it, or the infamous “You've been selected to win one million dollars!” pop-ups. Offers like these are often fake, conniving, or full of discrepancies. But because we strive to have what we want for little work or little time, we give into these schemes that we subconsciously know will never live up to their expectations. Hard work, security, and trust are the safest ways to achieve success, but these words don't seem to be in our vocabulary.
Kendall didn't expect to hit me. Sure, she meant to scare me, but her intentions were not to cause me any pain. Results, unfortunately, do not reflect intentions. On July 17, the exact same day that Kendall lodged a dumbbell into my orbital bone, a group of Ukrainian Rebels fired a missile at what they believed was a Ukranian cargo plane. “The bird has fallen,” rebels tweeted. They had succeeded, from what they could see. But, they hadn't. The plane they hit was a Malaysian Commercial Airliner holding 298 passengers, 3 of whom were infants.. Devastation struck, against all odds, the Malaysian Airline, just four months after the first Malaysian airline disaster of Flight MH370. Did the rebels expect to down a plane of civilians? No. Regardless, the severity of the action outweighed their intentions, which were strictly militant and political . Reckless is a word that quite easily defines Kendall's actions, the rebel's actions, and the actions of young generation of America. Merriam Webster's dictionary defines the word reckless as “not showing proper concern about the possible bad results of your actions.” sometimes people simply do not think through the myriad of consequences of their actions. Reckless. Last year, 5000 Americans under the age of 21 died due to alcohol related incidents. In 2011, 23% of all auto accidents were caused by drivers distracted by cellphones, an outstanding percent of those being teenagers or young adults. According totextinganddrivingsafety.org, 77% of teenage drivers think they can text and drive safely. This is a harrowing statistic for the future of our nation.
As I sat in the ER waiting for the results of CT scan, eloquent words weren't exactly on my mind. What was on my mind, was this:Am I gonna be ok? An hour later, this question was answered for me. Doctor Woods, no relation to myself, entered my room to tell me that I had no fracture: everything came up clear on my scans. This was great news! My mom kept repeating afterward that I would be black and bruised for a few days, and sure enough, I was. I got the notorious comments such as “did your girlfriend do that to you?” or “ how does the other guy look?” I quickly laughed these comments off, and later that night, I really started to think about how much of an effect both the physical and internal pains affected me, and the larger implications this has for my future. I guess a black eye is more than just a bar anecdote. But I guess the better question that ran through my mind is this: why did it take such a surging pain for me to realize the lessons that it gave me? And why our nation is doing the same thing. Preventative measures outweigh far superior to acts taken from “a lesson learned.” I received lessons of severity and lessons of recklessness. But tragedies like this, although mine was on a much smaller scale, cannot be happening on a global scale so that our country can learn. We must be proactive. We must learn before the opportunity to use our knowledge is too late. I guess I learned one more thing, and that's something everyone could learn: don't leave a 15lb dumbbell in your room, or just don't have a sister.
