Are We Really In Control?

This past week, I awoke and went to classes as I do every other day of my college life. Before my first class this past Tuesday I got onto the Internet to check the local news websites to see what is going on in the world around me. On any other other day, chances are I would have gone directly to the sports page, but on this day another story caught my eye. Near my hometown in western Pennsylvania the previous night, a car had crashed into a lake covered with a thin sheet of ice.

At this moment you're probably thinking well, okay, this kinda of stuff happens on a daily basis. Well I cannot argue with that but this is different. The accident occurred at most a half an hour from the front door of my house and about the same distance from the entrance to my college dorm. What really caught my eye though was that teenagers were the victims.

To understand why this caught my eye so quickly, we need to backtrack. It is my senior year if high school. Friday night, November 14, 2008. It was a normal day as far as I can remember. I went to school, went through the motions, and went home. Once I got home that night, I went to work at the local Dairy Queen where I was employed at the time. It was an average night, nothing too drastic. I was scheduled to close which I did, and went home.

Once I got home I found myself exhausted and crawled into bed. I got on Facebook as most teenagers in this country do as well as instant messenger. My friend was on and he messaged me asking if I heard what had happened. I said no. He told me that there had been a head-on collision on one of the major roads in the area and he went on to mention that kids from my high school were involved. Well I asked who; and when he told me Charley had not survived, I could believe it. He was one of those people that everyone knew regardless of how close they were to him, and now he was gone.

Fast forward a couple of months. Sunday January 18, 2009. I went skiing that day. On the way home I turned my phone on and received a small amount of unread text messages. One of them read something similar to the following; "In memory of Shannon who left us in a terrible accident. Please pray for Dana who is in critical condition." I have left out last names for privacy sake. Shannon, like Charley had many friends and had touched so many others; and now two months and four days after him, she's gone.

Fast forward now to the day I mentioned in the beginning. January 26, 2010. A vehicle crashes into an ice-covered lake, and teenagers are the victim. By this time I have graduated and moved on to college, but still have quite a few friends back at my Alma mater. I hoped, beyond all hope, that these kids were not from there. Well, my hope was busted in a complete tragedy. Three seniors were pulled from the icy water, none of them had survived.

This lead me to think, are we really in control of our lives? These kid had dreams like the rest of us. They all had a promising future. I am certain that not one of them awoke the day prior with even a remote thought that this day would be their final here on earth.

So I ask again, are we really in control of our lives? As much as we may be organized to an nth degree; we may have the latest gadgets that help us keep up in the fast paced world of today; we may be leader, we may be a follower; we may be Christian, Jewish, Islamic, Hindu, or even atheist. We may be veterans; mothers husbands, brothers, sisters, and daughters; we may be politicians, or we may be garbage collectors. In any case, I have been lead to believe over the past year that we have no control.

We are only human. We have created this mess that is our world, and now we find that every day is a struggle to clean it up. As a race and a species, we have had our triumphs and our failures. Wholly, we believe that the human race is in control of the earth, and people in certain positions have control over others. As I see it, we will not have complete control until we have conquered death.

We have not done that in any way.

Granted, we can prolong life and damn it we can end it in seconds, but we cannot avoid it totally. Therefore, my friends, no matter how much control we think we may have, we have none. Tomorrow or the next day could be our time. All it takes is a patch of ice, an earthquake, an overdose, or even a simple mistake. We have no control over when our time as a mortal will end, therefore we really have no control at all.

First Things First

If you are reading this, it is probably because you stumbled upon it while looking for something else. Maybe you even went out of your way to click on the link I posted on a few of my other places of interest. Regardless, I thank you for visiting and hope you find what I have to say some what interesting. I highly doubt that you will agree with everything I have to say and you may even find it highly controversial.

I do however, wish to inform you that I am not seeking to make headlines with outlandish comments. My purpose in being here at all is to simply record what I think bout on a daily basis, and be able to share it with everybody.

I encourage your feedback and will do my best to return comments and answer any questions.

Thanks!