What a Story this is!

I have two amazing blog entries to make but I have to start with one -- so I'll proceed chronologically.

I'll break this edition into a few parts and then tie them up together in the end. There is definitely a very powerful lesson to be learned -- you'll see, just follow along. All of the following is true and, after the fact, impacted me greatly.

SCENE 1:

I have just left work to grab some lunch. The time is approximately 1:00pm, give or take ten minutes. As I am driving down the road that leads out of my workplace, I notice a man standing in front of his Red Chevrolet tracker. The front windshield is completely smashed and there is pretty extensive damage to the back of his vehicle.

"Hey bro, are you alright?! Is everything ok?"

He looks at me as if I had just spoken to him in a foreign language. I see his eyes are slightly glazed. I just assumed he was really upset and perhaps shed a tear or two over his plight. Again, I asked him if he was alright. He didn't respond to me the second time as well. A little voice in my head told me to stop my car and to get out and approach him -- but I was too complacent and wanted to get lunch, so I drove past him and proceeded to get lunch.

Scene 2:

There is a massive accident on the Severn River Bridge -- Annapolis traffic becomes completely gridlocked. This happened on my way back from lunch. I am completely pissed off because every street is just a massive cluster fuck of immense proportions. What in the hell happened? Who in the hell was responsible for this mess?

A total of nine vehicles were involved in the accident. Both lanes of a major bridge were shut down. Five people were taken to local hospitals. Over two hundred and fifty gallons of diesel fuel spilled on to the bridge and, subsequently, leaked into the river. The details of all this are right here.

Scene 3:

The next day, I pick up the paper and begin reading. A friend from work explains that a red Chevrolet Tracker caused the accident because the driver was drunk.

"You know, Kramer, the Tracker didn't have a windshield during the accident! They found the windshield on our street!"

It started to sink in quickly -- it was the same guy that I had seen. It was the same vehicle. My complacency caused a massive accident because I was too disinterested or lazy to get out and approach the man. Had I known that he was drunk, I would have never let him back in his vehicle. I had the opportunity to avert all of this but yet I did not.

The moral of the story?

It amazed me how much our actions can influence the lives of others. Just a simple action can have amazing repercussions at some future point. Had I stopped my car and gotten out to talk to this man, all of this would have been avoided. This was an amazing wake-up call for me. Our actions can have AMAZING and PROFOUND implications. We can't sit idle and allow things to slip by. We can have some influence on fate and redirect events in our lives -- and sometimes our actions can have amplified effects on hundreds and thousands of others.

So, the next time you find yourself sitting idle or choosing to be complacent instead of acting, think about the future and force your ass to take action. You just very well may have a profound effect on the course of future events.