The human body can be quite strange sometimes, don't you think?
These past few nights I haven't been sleeping too well. Yesterday I woke up at 3am for no reason, and tonight it's 2:21am and I'm having no luck as well. Perhaps it's the stress: working 25+ hours a week plus my internship seem to be getting to me.
My latest read, Emotional Intelligence, has really gotten me thinking about a lot of different things. Combined with everything else I've read on the unconscious mind, our snap decisions, irrationality, emotions, and psychology in general, I've begun to ask myself a seemingly endless string of questions.
How would my life have been different had my upbringing been changed, even the slightest bit? How would I be different, both emotionally and physically, if my parents had stayed together? How did I go from the shy, emotional kid in first grade who cried about most everything to someone who finds himself struggling to be empathetic and connect to the emotions of others?
A few days ago I was riding my bike on the Burke Gilman. The speed limit is 15mph, I was recklessly sprinting at 23+. While I was passing a family, a 6 year old girl dashed across the road in front of me. The moment my eyes caught her motion, my body kicked into gear. It's strange how your mind will act first and ask questions later: my fingers had bolted down the handlebars and squeezed my brakes. Sensing my back wheel lock up, my reflexes put more braking into the front. While the shifting weight caused my bike to tilt forward, I had somehow jumped off my bike while it went airborne and in three or four steps I had come to a stop. The mind is so phenomenal: the same components of the mind that caused the girl to run towards the blackberries on the other side of the road allowed me to prevent what could have very well sent her to the ER. But the credit doesn't go to my unconscious mind.
It goes to God.
His magical intervention caused three occurences. 1) I adjusted my seat, though I didn't have a particular reason to. 2) I had to pass both a group of walkers and another ride, slightly slowing me down. 3) There were a few bumps in the road from tree roots, causing me to brake.
Looking back, I can't help but think what might have happened if God hadn't intervened. At the beginning of my ride that day, I prayed to God to keep my safe. And he certainly answered my prayers by teaching me a lesson I'll never forget.
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