There are moments in life where one’s attention is forced to remain present and fully aware of everything going on around. Skydiving, race-car driving, intense video games, being hunted down by a warlike extraterrestrial being — these situations demand absolute focus and are induced by choice or fate.
A few hours ago my situation arrived by fate with free express shipping included. It wasn’t pleasant.
To paint a little backstory, it was snowing outside for most of the day going between snow and rain until the temperature chilled enough to cover the roads with ice.
I was on my way home from an expo event when I noticed a glossy looking sheen on the highway and felt the traction in my tires slip while driving. Taking my speed down from 100 to about 80km/hr, I one hand texted my girlfriend telling her to be careful of the ice, not feeling all that concerned about my own well-being.
Because I had newer tires on my vehicle, I was feeling a degree of security at these lower speeds. Most cars were going faster than I was, and I started to feel like I was being more cautious than I needed to be.
As I approached an elevated off-ramp that curved a half circle up to continue on my way, I noticed on the opposite side of the highway there was a car that spun out into the ditch and three vehicles involved in an accident.
Looks like I’m going to have to be even more cautious during the turn.
That was when at the peak of the curve, I lost complete control of my vehicle and felt all four tires begin to slide. So much for excessive caution.
It was then that the epiphanies began to arrive and the following seven truths unmasked themselves.
1. In Dire Circumstances, There’s Always a Choice.
Once my tires locked up, I could feel myself beginning to panic. The first thing that came to mind was that I was going to glide off the road and down the steep incline on either side to (likely) roll-over and crash.
My mind began to inject details into this particular outcome. I’d have to get a tow truck, I might be injured, suffer injuries to my body and pride and boy is it ever going to suck having to wait for who knows how long until help arrives. It’s cold, I’m not going to enjoy sitting upside down in the car, how much money are repairs going to cost, I’m going to have to deal with insurance and the police, etc.
This negative stream of thought took less than a few seconds to envision. You know how life flashes before your eyes? This was that, but kind of in reverse.
While my hands (and buttocks) tightly clenched themselves in the onset of terror, I noticed something strange.
There was the offering of a choice to be made.
It was like… All that negativity and fear shut itself off and I had to choose what I wanted. Right in that moment, without any time for hesitation.
Either I was going to realize the outcome I visualized or I could choose to create a new one and that was when I realized…
2. Faith Matters a Lot More Than You Think
“That’s the difference between faith and fear. Fear wonders what if, but faith proclaims even if.” -Sarah Beckman
As a person who values logic and being able to logically navigate my thoughts emotions and actions — I felt I could reliably predict what the outcome of this was going to be. The odds of me sliding off the road to tumble down either of the two inclines were highly in my favour. If I was someone objectively watching the situation unfold, I would have tossed in a few bucks betting against myself. The ramp was covered in ice. No way could this dude manage to get his tires to stick. There wasn’t any way for it to happen.
And yet…
I decided to bet against the odds. I was going to have faith.
And unlike what Yoda advises in the gif above, my third epiphany became a special one.
3. Where There’s a Will, There’s Always a Way
“Those who keep trying can never fail. It is only when we stop trying can we admit to having failed.” -D. Raizok
As my car skated on the road to oblivion, I squelched fearful thoughts. I thought, “well, I’m going to do my best and whatever happens, happens” although I didn’t think that in so many words. The mind doesn’t communicate with itself using words in that kind of situation. There isn’t any time for that.
Again, the odds were stacked against me and I didn’t see how this was going to work out, but I needed to try and not resign myself to a bad outcome. It was an easy one to accept, but not the one I most wanted.
I then felt this Zen-like calm flood inside and my hands began to merge with the car. Fusing into a symbiotic relationship like it was an extension of my own body.
There really wasn’t any other option. I had to make choices on the nanosecond level to execute a course of action that I had no plan of attack for. I couldn’t think of my car and myself as being separate from one another. We had to cooperate and become a team.
What was the plan going to be then? All I had was a vague knowing which lead me to my fourth realization.
4. The Force Exists!
You know that feeling of oneness and fully being present? Where you feel blended into everything that is around you, like you were inside of an intricate machine that depended on each of its single parts to function as a whole? It’s that sense where everything needs another thing to exist along with. Where you matter just as much as a praying mantis in the Amazon jungle does.
Sometimes in these states of heightened coherency, actions can feel robotic and impulsive and irrational and a hidden “hand” appears to take control without the messiness of logic getting in the way. Sometimes it never makes sense. Sometimes it makes the most amount of sense.
As I began feeling “one” with the car, my hand kept the wheel steady. I pulled it with gentle determination as I tested to see what the results were. A little pull didn’t seem to straighten the car out, so I escalated and pulled it all the way to left as it could go. Away from the direction I was sliding towards.
Astonishment and wonder began to paint itself on the canvas of my face as my car smoothly drifted all the way through the bend and onto the straight part of the road. How was this happening? How did I not flip the car over with such a hard tug of the wheel?
Shaken, I continued on my drive and kept trying to figure out how I knew what to do when I didn’t know what to do.
It really did feel like I tapped into “the force” or an intelligence that had an answer for a situation that seemed to be without a solution.
My fifth realization then became this:
5. With God, All Things Are Possible
Just to be clear, my present conceptualization of “God” is not as well formed as I would like it to be. For much of my life I’ve studied scripture, New Age, philosophy and the occult trying to gain a deeper understanding of what God is supposed to be and still not knowing for sure.
I often wonder what a “God” could look or be like and while I don’t have complete certainty in my ideas, I am convinced of a few tenets I’ve cobbled together for myself.
My conviction is that there does exist an intelligence in the universe that is both outside and within ourselves. There does exist a “source” which can produce what we perceive as miracles, insights, creativity, humor and this orderly force when connected with, can inspire great upheavals and accomplishments.
Yet, I am on the fence about whether or not such a force has any emotional attachment to our individual lives and desires. I mean, if I was an omniscient being out there in the universe, How could I possibly engage in a one-on-one relationship with each and every form of life in the cosmos? How could such an intelligence function? Why would a highly evolved being who understands that death is not the end, even care if we should die or suffer misfortune? In the grand scheme of things, why should a speck of sand on a beach be any more significant than a drop of water in the ocean? How can such a force NOT play favorites? Especially with so much suffering and tragedy in the world? On just THIS world, much less the many billions of other planets likely to contain intelligent life as alive and in need as any one individual here on Earth is?
How can such an intelligence directly intervene in our lives and why? I don’t know, but it does.
It did. And though I couldn’t conceive of how a successful resolution would look like, it was achieved nonetheless.
My sixth realization then became:
6. The Ego is Not Your Amigo
There is a somewhat cliched notion going around that is uh, “retweeted” in many old religions and new ones that the ego is not your amigo. The ego doesn’t deal well with spiritual/metaphysical reality when it is filtered through the lenses of materialism and it’s understandable why.
Consciousness for instance, does not appear mechanistic and able to be broken down into parts. We also cannot explain for the emergence of life within any cellular organism in the study of abiogenesis. Who can explain or prove any of it? Yet we exist. We are all living proof of a mystery that transcend what our imaginations and egos can comprehend.
Teal Swan has an interesting take on this subject.
“The ego tries to rescue you by telling you to become independent and meet all of your own needs yourself so you never have to feel lack again. The ego calls this ‘empowerment’ when in truth it is just fear.”
What I understood in coming around to exploring my thoughts, I discovered that it was my ego which felt threatened by the feeling of not being in control of the situation I was in. Instead of providing me with a solution when I most needed it, I was given a shrug and a list of what to expect once I crashed my car. That didn’t help.
I didn’t like not having control. I knew on a deep level that I was reliant on processes that needed to work in harmony with one another and not in contention or competition. To resolve this crisis, I had to dissolve the ego and surrender to a greater understanding and synergy.
Sure, in twenty some years of driving, I successfully navigated treacherous roads and that has given me a bit of confidence, but I also spun-out and landed in the ditch once. It felt like the situation I was in was identical to one that occurred in the past.
My sixth realization revealed that the ego functions as a grounding mechanism for physical/psychological/social inputs and works to place reality into a context that is comfortable for us to inhabit. The ego has the ability to guard and protect us against danger, serve as a retriever of information, instill false/true confidence and also steer us totally the wrong way in life by whatever fiction it needs to spin.
The ego acts as a filter that separates us from the cosmos. It is the ego that trembles when you look at the night sky and marvel at it’s depth. It is the ego that shakes when you experience rejection and pain. The ego, or the you-who-you-think-you-are-but-aren’t-really is the interface we use to navigate this reality with.
Think of a video game in which you control a character. That guy in Grand Theft Auto isn’t actually YOU. You’re only using him as a way to experience the game. It is an avatar that takes instructions from an outside intelligence that sees a much larger picture than what is being displayed on a screen.
When trust is shifted towards the player and not the avatar, we can achieve results beyond our own imaginings. Although it takes an experienced wisdom to develop, a strong and discerning ego is worth striving towards. There is nothing wrong with having an ego, trouble arises when we give the ego more credit and control than it deserves.
This brings me to my final and seventh epiphany.
7. The Value of a Lesson is Proportionate Only To The Level of Gratitude That You Feel.
I learned some lessons and yet, on the way home I started to feel the value of these lessons fade. Twenty minutes later, I was starting to think it was a non-event. I decided then to take a bath and that was when I played everything back in my mind.
It really was a lesson. A series of them, and I was not being grateful.
When I went to trade school years ago to learn insulating, our classes had two components. Industrial insulating and commercial. I didn’t care at all about commercial insulating because I didn’t feel it was useful. Commercial insulating was not paying nearly as much as industrial was and there was no way I would be taking a pay cut of ten dollars to do it.
Yet, it was valuable information and I choose not to remember any of it. Why? Because I was ungrateful. I didn’t integrate what I’ve learned even though it was useful. I just wanted to pass the course and get it over with. Let it fade away like high school calculus did.
I realized again that I had a choice to make. Will I learn anything from what happened, or will I file it all away into the section of my memory banks that has “kinda sorta interesting thing that happened” written on the label? How likely will I revisit or integrate this information if I didn’t think it was that important to remember? Not very likely at all.
Then I thought about the alternative. Maybe I would have gone off the incline and tumbled to my fiery death. That sure would’ve stuck in my mind wouldn’t it? Would I be grateful for the experience? No. I’d wish it never happened and that it played out differently.
I didn’t want to let the routine nature of life establish itself and allow other things to eclipse the measure of my attention. I wanted to take what I learned seriously and show that I was grateful.
That is why I decided to put a couple hours of effort into writing this article. I wanted to memorialize what I went through so that I can revisit my thoughts even if the memory of them fades. I also did not want this to turn into a semi-entertaining anecdote to impress or entertain people with. That’s just the ego.
I also wanted to show with the time and effort I spent in writing this, that it was all appreciated. Anyone can spare two seconds to say thank you to someone, but how many of us make the effort to show how thankful we actually are?
Although the incident lasted for less than 8 seconds, there was a lot revealed in this short amount of time.
Thank you whoever you are.
And thank you for reading.
