Split Second
Life Can Change That Fast
The crack of splintering wood was as loud as a gunshot, and just as abrupt. It came from less than ten feet away from where I and my friend, fellow writer Mike Messeroff, were sitting. It was just this past Sunday, when we were at a beachside restaurant, enjoying a leisurely breakfast with cups of paradigm-shifting Costa Rican coffee. In the moment before that loud noise, as we watched the Pacific Ocean gently massage the grand beach before us, our conversation was light and our moods were carefree. In the moment after the noise, we were dumbstruck.
An eight-inch diameter, twenty-foot tall tree trunk, that had surrendered its branches to time, decided in that moment that it would break off a few feet above the ground. The math tells me that by the time the roughly two-hundred pound log landed about three-quarters of a second later, it was traveling at more than 17 miles per hour. The kinetic energy in that equation amounts to the tree weighing about 540 pounds at the moment of impact, or more accurately, 2,400 Newtons of force. Bear in mind that it is possible to kill a person with less than one Newton of force.
The tree landed across the laps of a man and woman who were sitting at a table just a few feet from us…a table that we had nearly chosen. The pair were literally trapped in their chairs as the tree lay across them like a giant safety bar on a roller coaster.
Mike and I, of course, immediately sprang to their aid, lifting the tree off their laps and over their heads (the glass table was right in front of them, so the tree had to go the other way). Incredibly, except for a minor bruising to the man’s right hand, they were uninjured. But the story could have taken a much darker path.
Had they been sitting mere inches closer to their table, or just leaning forward to enjoy a sip of their coffee, that 2,400 Newtons of force could have landed on their heads with what would have certainly been a death blow. If Mike and I had chosen that table, it could have been us on the wrong end of that force.
Many lessons could be drawn from this true story. Cut down dead trees before they fall might be an obvious one. But the more transcendent lesson I take away is how quickly life can literally switch from a happy day at the beach to instant death.
It is a perfect example of why you have to live your life to its fullest, every day. Even in the song “Tomorrow”, from the great musical “Annie”, as lyricist Martin Charnin promises “The sun’ll come out tomorrow”, he ultimately reminds us that tomorrow is “…always a day away.” You do not have tomorrow, and you never will. Today is what is important. I don’t mean you don’t need to plan for the future, but you simply must live this day - this moment - for all it is worth.
I can’t suggest what maximizing the moment means, because it is an ever-changing answer. In this example, one moment meant enjoying my coffee and conversation to its fullest. In the next moment, it meant lifting a dead tree off the laps of two unsuspecting people who were instantaneously lucky to be alive. In back-to-back ticks of the clock, living my best life had radically different definitions. The same is true for those two people.
What I can offer is that living your best life means being conscious of where you are and what you are doing at all times. Whether you are hanging at the beach or standing in line at the DMV office, find a way to make that moment worth living. Be present and make of it all that you can, because the next moment might not come.