The Hurricane

I knew someone who believed that the significant event in their life was being “born again.” But sitting next to me that night was a veteran of several wars who claimed to be “reborn in the Airborne,” which was his most significant event. Me? Well, they smiled when I mentioned that it happened one day in 1965 when the final ride on my first long-distance road trip let me off in Boston. It was a spring morning, and I had been on the road for three days. Everything seemed fresh and new. I was 18 years old.
And so it goes with crucial life-shifting happenings. Cracks appear in foundations, lightning shoots from the sky, and we reestablish life with new vision, capabilities, or perception.
Don’t laugh at another’s life-defining, altering, or affirming event. Unlike much else in life, their meaning to the individual is unique.
You only lose out on it if you roll over and go back to sleep. Don’t laugh. Many people get confronted by great opportunities only to retreat into the closet of familiarity. It takes a bit of courage to walk away from an old life.
The famous sailor Joshua Slocum summed it up well:
“I once knew a writer who, after saying beautiful things about the sea, passed through a Pacific hurricane, and he became a changed man.”