“If you are currently in need or undergoing tragedy, or you
endured a tragedy personally or know of someone who did, share your story so
people can either support you, your family, your friend, or a community foundation/charity
that helps support those in need.”
When tragedy strikes, it’s unpredictable. There’s no
forewarning. Doesn’t matter who you are. Where you’re at. Race, gender, age,
nationality, socioeconomic status, psychology, mental status, environmental
factors – it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter if you’re a person who strives
to always do good. Doesn’t matter your religion or non. Tragedy is much like a
tornado. It touches down, at random, uncontrolled, and causes a whirlwind of
chaos. You weren’t chosen for it by some design other than just being at the
wrong place at the wrong time.
Yet the first thing that goes through people’s minds when
tragedy strikes is what they could have done differently to avoid it. We
instantly take responsibility and kill ourselves with grief in believing that
had we done even just one thing differently, it wouldn’t have happened. Like
we’re somehow supposed to have this superpower that could have somehow
forewarned us that something bad was going to happen so that we could have
ensured that it didn’t happen.
Unlike a tornado, with
most tragedies, there’s no possible prediction as to the oncoming tragedy.
There’s no forecast that says you’re in an area or situation
where tragedy might strike. But even in those cases where there are warnings,
you still can’t know if you or the ones you love are going to be struck or not.
Every time we get behind the wheel, we know we’re risking the statistics of
automobile accidents. Every time we inhale the air or live beside cell towers
or nuclear plants or factories that emit all these chemicals or otherwise into
the air, we know we’re taking that chance. Every food we eat could have
consequences. Even when we think our water is safe, it isn’t always. Our houses
could burn down with a single bad outlet and an energy surge.
One eroded hole in a pipe could emit carbon monoxide. The
people in the downstairs apartment could be cooking meth without anyone in the
building even knowing. The babysitter with a dozen good references could just
lose it. The friendly neighbor could be a pedophile. You could have a faulty mortgage
and be homeless just like that. You could slip on a piece of ice and break your
back and be without income just like that.
You could lose
everything that ever mattered to you, or everything that you worked for in a
blink-of-an-eye. That’s how tragedy strikes!
And there is no rhyme or reason for it. No matter how
healthy a person tries to be or all the dangers they try to avoid; all the
risks they refuse to take – they’re still going to age and those biological
tragedies are going to strike regardless. Yet our minds still need to manifest
a reason. A reason it happened. A way it could have been avoided.
You can’t avoid a tornado from touching down on your home.
No matter what you do or how you live your life or who you are. No matter which
choices you made differently. No matter your faith. No matter where you stand
in the world. You can’t say to yourself, “If I had just lived in the house next
door, then this wouldn’t have happened.” No. Because if you had lived in the
house next door, you’d be going through a different sort of tragedy.
Tragedy strikes
everyone!
Just like mother nature’s fury. And it has absolutely
nothing to do with your life choices and who you are.
Yet we blame ourselves. We question. Continuously. Is this
karma? Is this because I didn’t pray enough? Should I have been a better
person? Where did I go wrong? What did I do wrong to deserve this? I must have
done something wrong.
They say, “Why do bad things always happen to good people?”
Tragedies don’t strike
based on moral grounds. Nor are they a test of faith or will or strength.
There aren’t any stipulations or conditions involved that
made it happen. It’s just events playing out in a certain way. If he hadn’t
driven to work or I’d just known something bad would happen, then … If I hadn’t
just trusted this person with my child, then … If … If … If…
If you lived your life in a bubble to protect against any
and every bad thing that could possibly happen, then you’d be a bubble and
nothing more.
People who never smoke die of cancer. People who don’t drink
die of kidney failure. Health nuts that only eat organic food and exercise
daily die of heart attacks while running. The obese person dies in a car
accident. The person who tries to avoid obesity dies of an aneurism in the brain.
The overprotective mother that tries to keep her children away from every
possible harm dies of a stroke and her kids are placed in the foster care
system. The Dad that turns his head for two seconds winds up with a two-year
old hit by a car. Or the most perfect family with the perfect house and the
most healthy kids in the most safest environment gets touched by a tornado.
Tragedy is the greatest
reminder that terrible things can happen, regardless of who we are or what we
do to avoid it.
Tragedy proves to us that no matter how much control we
think we have, it can be taken from us in a hundredth-second blink of an eye.
But more than anything, tragedy breaks us away from the brainwashing of a
capitalist society, from superficial relationships, from surface possessions
and desires, from all the stupid, ridiculous things that overcame our lives,
and brings up back to our origins and what’s most important.
Tragedy reminds us in
the ways that we were blessed. In the things we took for granted because we got
so caught up in society’s ways and life.
Tragedy makes us see the world differently, and perceive
things in different ways. It makes us recognize the bigger things happening
outside of us and our conditioned roles as human beings. It allows us to see
the more important things in life. In a way, tragedy shows us where we came
from. Just a glimpse. And suddenly paying that electric bill or working minimum
wage for a multi-million-a-year company doesn’t seem so important anymore.
We start looking for a
higher purpose, a bigger meaning.
The job we’ve been working for for over a decade can only
allow us three days to grieve for immediate family members only, and if we need
more time than that, we risk losing our job. Our insurance won’t cover the
ridiculous expense of the medical bills. Our state will take all our assets,
our very home, if we don’t pay their taxes. The friends we thought we had will
turn when we’re no longer convenient. And the life and everything that we
believed in, everything we worked for, everything that our existence led up to
in that moment of tragedy falls to ash.
And thereafter, nothing else matters. Everything we thought
mattered before matters no longer. Because, you see, there is one profound
purpose and meaning to tragedy. It makes us come to terms with our reality and
makes us want to try to make a difference, change what is, and pull others out
of their narrow-minded brain-washed world before tragedy strikes them too.
Tragedy makes us fight
for something better and it very quickly filters out the superficial and
insignificant.
In a world where countries, states, counties, communities,
and even families operate alone, every (wo)man unto themselves, to each his
own, each and every single one of us just trying to survive, it is tragedy that
breaks us out of our independent shells for just that moment to look and see
what’s happening around us, to take that wavering breath and think, “What if
that was me? I can’t even imagine what I’d do. I don’t even know how I’d get
through it.”
More than anything, it
is tragedy that brings us together.
At least it should.
And that is the purpose of FreeBird Express Publishing’s
upcoming anthology about Real Lives! Real People! Real Tragedies! It is a place
where people can share their stories, their tragedies, whether past or present,
with their families, their communities, the world. Not only will all the
proceeds go to local charities and families in need, but each story will also sponsor
a local-based charity or foundation or family-in-need that can independently be
donated to.
So please, if you are currently in need or undergoing tragedy,
or you endured a tragedy personally or know of someone who did, share your
story so people can either support you, your family, your friend, or a community
foundation/charity that helps support those in need. You don’t have to be a
writer to share your story. Email freebirdexpresspublishing@gmail.com
with your story or to schedule a time to chat and discuss your story and we’ll
help get your story out there to the world.
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