Invisible gratitude

Friday. 3:51 PM. Circa junior year of high school.

My friend and I were cruising down Sixes road at thrice the legal speed limit in his white, two door, manual transmission, ‘92 Honda Prelude. Bobbin’ our heads to some Young Jeezy. As was customary of the times for 16 year old white boys with brains the size of a grape to do.

The school week was over. The weekend had officially begun. The world was our oyster. Life was good.

Suddenly, some punk in a black 3 series BMW (the official vehicle of punks nationwide) sped past us in a cloud of smoke.

Oh hell no. My friend would not accept this humiliating defeat. We had lost the battle but refused to lose the war.

He shifted into fifth gear, reaching triple digits on the speedometer, and swerved in front of the enemy.

Victory!

Then to celebrate, my grape-sized brain took over my body as if I was just a passive observer watching from above.

My right index finger pressed the down button on the passenger window. My right arm shot out of the open window. And my right middle finger slowly extended to its upright position.

Oh boy.

Our enemy did not take too kindly to my gesture.

He raced past us again, swerved back in front of us, and hit us with a good ol’ fashioned break check.

My friend slammed on his breaks as we skidded to within a couple inches of the back bumper. And to make matters worse, we were stopped at a red light with nowhere to go.

The punk opened his door, got out of the car, and with steam pouring out of his ears shouted “You wanna fu**in’ go?!”

I slid down in my seat as my all-too-short life flashed before my eyes.

My friend stretched his neck out his window and said, “No thanks. You’d definitely kick our ass.”

This must have been exactly what the punk wanted to hear because he got back into his car, slammed the door shut, and sped off as the light turned green.

Those seven words uttered by my friend saved our lives.

I learned two valuable lessons on that fateful day 17 years ago that I’ll never forget:

1. Don’t flick off strangers (especially punks in BMWs)

2. Be appreciative for all the horrible things that could’ve happened to you but didn’t. What I call invisible gratitude.

Any midwit can be grateful for all the wonderful things that happen to them. That doesn’t take much skill.

A master can be just as grateful, if not more so, for all the tragedies that could’ve happened but didn’t.

It’s not hard to imagine how one or two things could have gone slightly different in my incident above with fatal consequences.

But let’s take it a step further with some less obvious examples that we all have experienced:

• Cross a street and didn’t get flattened by an 18 wheeler? Be grateful.

• Play basketball and didn’t tear an ACL? Be grateful.

• Fly on a plane and didn’t crash? Be grateful.

I read some cheesy self-help book years ago that recommended I ask myself, “What happened today that I am grateful for?”

I used to agonize over this exercise. Why was it so hard to think of anything?

It never crossed my mind to flip the question on its head and ask, “What didn’t happen today that I’m grateful for?”

That opens up the floodgates for your mind to come up with countless potentially awful things that could have happened but didn’t.

Have you ever been grateful for something that didn’t happen to you?

PS — To that punk in the BMW, I’m sorry. I’m forever invisibly grateful for what you didn’t do to us.

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