Do You Accept the Terms Life Offers You?

Serious accidents are deeply tragic; they rearrange families forever.

Formerly energetic individuals are mowed down by a single traumatic event. Because of someone else’s error of judgment, they are seriously mauled by life.

At the hospital and at home, those around the victim will talk endlessly. They will work at compelling them to accept the randomness of their fate. This is the new question that will augur into their consciousness: Do you accept the terms life offers you?

Predictable Misery

Motor vehicles are the #1 cause of death for teens in America.

They claim the lives of 6,000 teens each year. And 300,000 can be expected to be injured before the year is out.

One of the most powerful influences in getting teens to drive more safely is their peers.

Talking to the friends of your kids is an important safeguard, and could prevent many more unnecessary tragedies.

Why Is There Is So Much Suffering in This World?

Religious leaders, philosophers and novelists concern themselves with the random tragedies that strike at the human condition with scary ferocity. The philosophical area of theodicy concerns itself with how can there be an all-loving and all-powerful God who would permit so much suffering in the world.

Theodicy envisions a triangle. At one point the deity completely loves. At the second point is the notion that the deity is entirely powerful. The third triangle point represents suffering and tragedy.

The question then is, “can the triangle be squared?” Whether it can or not will depend on an individual’s particular world view.

Unnecessary Tragedies

Many Americans understand romance as a lightning bolt from the mysterious beyond. Sociologists tell a different story. They say the reality is you only marry who you meet, and that is dictated by whatever layer of the socio-economic strata in which you live your life. Beyond social class, academics point to the cold reality that love is a decision, not a tempest of uncontrollable forces seizing your being.

Motorists also like to think that accidents are random, uncontrollable events. As one who has practiced injury law exclusively, for about 3 decades, I can say that is not the situation. In fact, the word “accident” is a laymen’s term. Plaintiff’s lawyers don’t use it around other lawyers. They refer to road mishaps as “collisions.”

Accidents suggest that what happened was a just-one-of-those-things event, a twist of mercurial fate intervening in human affairs. The word conceals the truth that there was a human agent who created the event.

In contrast, collision is a stripped-down word which neutrally announces that an impact happened.  And, if you look closely enough, you’ll find mundane negligence as the explanation.
The word collision invites us to ask “Did it have to happen? Could this terrible situation have been avoided?” With honest appraisal and clear-eyed thinking, the answer will be “Yes.”