Wow @chiefmappster, that's an amazing and heartfelt story... I'm sorry you lost a friend that day, but glad you're alive to share this today.

It's an interesting thing (speaking as an "old fart" here) how often the most positive and inspiring people in life either had a close call, or technically died and came back. It changes us somehow... my wife was dead on an operating table for 11 minutes in her teens but came back and grew up to counsel people and change their lives; a friend who worked as a corporate attorney... his car spun out on a highway in a remote part of Georgia and he hung from the seatbelt, upside down with broken ribs for 7 hours before being found... now he runs healing and motivational retreats. I've met others.

I died too, a long time ago.

I don't know what happens exactly... my own experience has been that those things that used to feel like "big stuff" become small stuff, and the little stuff we used to take for granted becomes important.

We share some odd parallels... (in part why I felt motivated to write this long screed)... I was raised among the elite with country clubs and mansions, where a broken nail was the trauma of the day... I once made a lot of money, and I have also lived on a bench and collected aluminum cans to sell for money.

And it's all good! Sometimes the words come out sounding trite... and yet they are true. It is all good... these strange paths led us to exactly where we need to be.

But most of all-- and what resonates most-- is that gratitude matters. And be grateful, in the moment. Take the time-- as I did last night-- to stop and wonder at the beauty of the late evening sun's light playing across stalks of grass and blooming lavender. It doesn't cost anything to take 10 seconds, 30 seconds... to be grateful.

And watch those synchronicities!

Namaste.