Last week my sister-in-law fell off a ladder. 

It wasn’t a “ha! ha! you fell down,” kind of fall. 

As the stabilizing bar on the aluminium step ladder gave way, she fell one way while her limbs, pinned under the ladder, went the other. She ended up in a hospital “Emergency” where she remained in a semi-conscious state for nearly two days. A number of stitches and a surgery later, she was discharged a couple of days ago to recoup at home.

Gets you thinking. When adversity strikes, you don’t get any notice.

They say fortunes can turn on a dime.

Health is no different.

The past couple of weeks have been rife with health-related bad news — a friend’s dad passing away; a niece having a boulder dropped on her foot at a school community clean-up event — fracturing her leg; family members undergoing major surgeries, serious medical tests and biopsies.

Though much of it is unavoidable, I think we owe it to ourselves to be as careful as we can be in our day-to-day lives.

For instance, it only takes a second for the microwave in your kitchen to catch fire because you inadvertently put some food covered in metal foil in it. I found this out the hard way through a careless mistake.

And as late as last week, I was on the squash court without protective eyewear. I could lose an eye with a hit; I know friends who did. My excuse? I had forgotten to put the glasses back in the gym bag after I took it out to have it cleaned.

Just like that, we throw caution to the wind as we go about our day-to-day affairs.

In a way, “being careful” is a relative term.

The Winter Olympics is a perfect example. 

I am mesmerized by the Big Air Snowboarding and Ski Halfpipe competitions. For me, it is all the more intriguing because when it comes to sports involving snow and ice, I am hopeless.

As one competitor after the other crashed out in the halfpipe event, I could not help but marvel at their resiliency to bounce back from what looked like almost certain life-altering mishaps. Landing backwards on the edge of the halfpipe from a height of 15 feet has to hurt, to say the least. But broken bones and torn muscles didn’t seem to stop them from attempting their next run.

Being careful is not what they do. You don’t win medals by being careful. When adversity strikes, they just bounce back.

But we are not talking about Olympic athletes. Nor are we talking about people in professions that come with danger-pay.

We are talking about ordinary folks who fall off ladders, get into car accidents, wreck their backs lifting heavy objects, and get stricken with illnesses that they don’t plan for.

I am no counsellor, but I am pragmatic.

The way I see it, there is no point worrying about things that you cannot control. You cannot reverse the past. Irrespective of the reasons, what happened cannot be undone. But you do have a realistic shot at influencing your future. You owe it to yourself to be careful when you can and ensure the basics are covered.

To use a controversial quote from Friedrich Nietzsche, “That which does not kill you makes you stronger.”

Things could always be worse!

Back to my sister-in-law.

Her mother, a doctor, said it best. “Her injuries will heal. Be thankful it wasn’t worse. She could have hit her head on the ledge as she came down, or, had a muscle tear that resulted in some permanent damage. She needed to take a break from her busy routine anyway…”

Words of wisdom!

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