Be Prepared for Minor Changes

I recently took a break from writing due to a new job. I had an experience this week that taught me a few lessons that I would like to share with you.

One of my main goals is to maintain an active and healthy lifestyle. I have to leave early and beat the traffic for my commute to work in the morning. I am a morning person in every aspect. I can’t come home from work and workout, so I need to do it early in the morning. At 5:00am, I am either road biking or swimming. I went out this past Monday and ran into some trouble about 5 miles into my ride. I came upon a construction zone where they had just repaved the road. I don’t have a light on my bike and it is pretty dark that early. Little did I know what was about to happen. In repaving the road there was a two inch lip going into the bike lane. I hit the lip and went down on my side pretty hard. I landed on my arm and had a three inch gash in my arm that left my bone exposed. After two ER and two doctor visits this week I believe my arm will be fine. I was very lucky.

I felt that it was pretty dark that morning, my vision was not the best and that I could get in an accident. I ignored the feeling because I had traveled that path many times before. The path had slightly changed by 2 inches and I was not prepared. I didn’t have a light and could not see that change. Minor changes sometimes seem so harmless. Changing from one job to the next doing the same thing could seem minor. Using your emergency fund for pleasure with the intent of renewing it could seem minor. The minor change in the road caused me serious pain this week. If I had just had been prepared with a light the minor change would not have affected me. I would not have to exhaust my emergency medical fund. I would not have to be a couch potato for 2 weeks during the recovery. I would have been more focused at work due to a lack of pain. I would have saved myself hours of explaining to everyone I met what was wrong with my arm. I would not have to endure the pain and remind my kids that they can’t jump on daddy’s arm right now. All of this could have been avoided if I had prepared for the minor change in the bike path.

The lesson I learned was: You can avoid some of the pains, mistakes and heartaches of minor changes in your life with little preparation.