Nobody is promised a future. Nobody is promised to grow old with the love of their life. Nobody is promised to buy that cozy little home on the end of the cul-de-sac. Nobody is promised to be able to celebrate their child’s first birthday. We go on with our lives everyday, unaware of the fact that thousands of people are losing someone they love every single hour. Maybe we are aware but something inside us makes us push it away. We don’t want it to be true, we don’t want to comprehend that it could be anyone we care about at any given moment. So, what do we do? We just don’t think about it. It’s better that way, isn’t it?   

Someone is completely gone, yet everyone gets to continue on with their life. They still wake up to go to work, cars continue to speed down the street, and people still get to live their dreams. We don’t think about it often, but how lucky are we to still be here today. Anybody could be gone in the blink of an eye, we could be gone in the blink of an eye. We take too much for granted too often. Eating just one more meal is something we take advantage of. Seeing our friends and family every single day.  Not everyone will have a meal to come home to with their family seated around the table. Not everyone will get to walk through their door and see the person waiting on the other side. Life is too short to not appreciate the opportunities we have right now. Your annoying little cousin waiting right behind you to push your head into the cake as soon as it’s time to blow out the candles. Those annoying little punches you get every single year on your birthday. It doesn’t matter that they are annoying though because we are lucky enough to celebrate one more year of life.

Who decides who or why someone is taken so early from us? What can we do to prevent it? We can’t prevent anything directly, but we can attempt to make a change. Change starts with ourselves. I will not drink and drive. I will not text and drive. I will not be under any sort of hallucinogens when I plan to drive. Will this prevent every accident? Of course not, but it could spare the life of others and my own. I ask that you find precautions you can take to prevent someone from losing their life, not getting a chance to create their own future.

There are thousands of people who have lost someone they love within the previous hour. Thousands of people who no longer have the chance to create the future they had planned for themselves. We can not just think about this, it is happening in our world today. It could be anybody at any time.  Learn to view things through others perspectives, appreciate what you have right now because not everyone may be lucky enough to have what you do right at this moment. Appreciate that you are still able to live and create your own future as of today.