9 lives!
November 22nd, 2012Myth! Cats have nine lives.
“According to a myth in many cultures, cats have multiple lives. In many countries, they are believed to have nine lives, but in Germany and some Spanish-speaking regions they are said to have seven lives,while in Turkish and Arabic traditions the number of lives is six. The myth is attributed to the natural suppleness and swiftness cats exhibit to escape life-threatening situations.Also lending credence to this myth is the fact that falling cats often land on their feet, using an instinctiverighting reflex to twist their bodies around. Nonetheless, cats can still be injured or killed by a high fall.“
The nine lives of Me! Fact or Fiction?
Why am I doing what I do? What events in someone’s life would cause them to alter the life they were leading?
I think. That’s what I do. Some people do physical labour. Some people use their brains. Me, I use my mind. There is a difference between the mind and the brain. Though it may not seem like work and not many people see the impact my thinking has on the world, I can guarantee each one of you that the impact is greater than will ever be measured.
A few weeks back my mind started making a connection between events in my life and the mythological 9 lives of cats. You see, I also have nine lives. Maybe less, maybe more. Nine lives that is, with a 2 second rule.
When I was a teenager my parents, my brother, and I, were in a car accident. We lost a battle with a freight train. The car was totalled, but no one was hurt. Coming round a corner in a yield, the train arrived at the road crossing at the same time as the car. A last second maneuver by the driver, my father, and the right front fender hit the freight train engine which swung us around and then the train hit the right rear fender pushing us into a snowbank.
Two seconds.
If we would have been at that intersection two seconds sooner we would have been on the railroad tracks and in front of the train. And most probably dead!
Two seconds.
Last year I’m driving my Mini Cooper from Vancouver to Calgary through the Rocky Mountains. That car is so much fun to drive on twisty roads. I’m coming around a blind corner and this really big truck is in the middle of my lane. I was lucky (if luck exists) because in that very corner the highway had some extra paving on the right shoulder. I was able to maneuver over to the side and avoid smashing head on into that very big truck.
Two seconds.
If I would have been two seconds faster I would have been at the corner, past the extra paving, when the truck would have come around the corner. I wouldn’t have had anywhere to go…but into the front grill of that truck, or into the mountain side. Dead!
Two seconds.
In the spring of 2000 I dropped my daughter off at school after a dental appointment. The traffic light at the intersection at the school wasn’t working. Everybody stopped and waited their turn. I remember thinking as I was stopped whether I should turn right to get to work or go straight. I decide to go straight. The next thing I remember is my head smashing against the driver’s side window. A teenager in a camaro had failed to stop, or even slow down (it was a school zone) and hit me dead on in the center of my Jeep Cherokee. I didn’t see him coming because of a curve and a bunch of school buses parked along that curve.
The impact bent the frame on the driver’s side of the vehicle to the middle of the car. The driver’s seat was half of what it was before. I survived, but for a black eye, a headache and neck pain that I feel on a daily basis these days. Why did I survive without spending any time in the hospital?
The vehicles! The car was low in the front and the Jeep had a high door frame and seating was elevated. The young driver hit the brakes and the car nose dived. The lowered car position and the high seating position in my Jeep saved my life. If a vehicle with a higher or larger front would have hit me or if I would have been in a lower seating position I would have been seriously injured or be dead. Remember how I mentioned that the Jeep frame was bent to the center of the vehicle and that my seat was half it’s normal size. Any lower and the seat would have been totally squished with me in it.
Two seconds.
Five years later and another car accident. Something minor. According to experts that accident triggered my fibromyalgia/chronic fatigue symptoms. One and a half years later and I stopped working as I had no energy. The experts say that there is no cure. I was told to “deal” with it. Forty plus years old and spend the rest of your life not being able to actually live and enjoy life. I might have been physically alive but psychologically the knowledge that I might never live the way I had planned on growing old sucked the little energy that I did have away. I might as well have died in that car accident in 2000.
Two seconds.
We don’t realize how two seconds can change your life. How many thoughts can you have in two seconds? What happens when you dwell on those two second thoughts for too long? Those two second thoughts start impacting the direction of your life.
Last spring a past classmate of my youngest daughter killed himself. A few years earlier he started having chronic pain and fatigue similar to fibromyalgia, but on a more severe scale. A highly active 15 year old now bed riddden and in constant pain. Here is an article chronicling his story:
Two seconds.
Yes. That is all it takes to change your life. An event that you have no control over can change your life in two seconds. Two seconds and an event that could have happened and impacted your life, doesn’t. A two second thought that could impact your life is within your control. What you do with those two seconds is up to you.
Two seconds…Nine lives…
My two second thought has lead me on an amazing journey the past five and a half years. I made a decision that I cannot regret. If I would have listened to the “experts” I would probably still be sitting in front of my TV in Calgary watching some stupid show and be brain dead. Instead I haven’t had any fibromyalgia/chronic fatigue symptoms in a year and a half. Last summer I went to see my doctor. He’s amazed at what I’ve done. He’s never heard of anyone “curing” themselves of those symptoms. Everyone else “manages” the symptoms to lead “half-normal” lives. I prefer to live the life I live, no matter how unorthodox it may seem to everyone, because for me living a “half-normal” life is the same as being dead.
I may not know what tomorrow will bring because I live the two second rule every second of every day. I control my two second thoughts for the direction I would like my life to go but know that the next two seconds can impact the rest of my live in a direction a hadn’t forseen. Good or bad doesn’t matter because there are plenty of two seconds in every minute of every hour of every day.
Nine lives!
Fact! We all have nines lives, maybe more, maybe less. It’s those two second thoughts that will decide how many you will have.
Think It! Feel It! Live It! Love It!