Were all familiar with the domino effect.
One thing leads to another and next thing you know, communism sweeps down through Asia.
Closer to home this notion of cause and effect, real or imagined, can play havoc with your head.
Particularly after a mishap you didnt see coming that nearly takes you out.
Theyre called war stories and if you survive them they can hold you in good stead at the water cooler, when you get back from sick leave.
You might have slipped over and ended up in intensive care
Or got an infection from nothing in particular and ended up in intensive care.
Or something fell on you and you ended up in intensive care.
One thing leads to another, and life takes its toll, often in the most innocuous manner.
Makes you realise how fricking dangerous it can be out there!!! in the kitchen.
Its something me and a friend were discussing the other day during a fire drill at work.
Yet another one, we lamented as we made our way through the claustrophobic stairwell that would make a great tandoori oven if this make-believe inferno turned out to be real. Not that it would, although thats why we have these things, right?
Spoken like people whove pondered the domino effect just a little bit too much.
And indeed this friend had had one of those innocuous injuries that nearly killed them recently. Fell over, got an infection, yada yada.
I wont go into the details, because there are many variations to these types of war stories, but they have a common thread they end up in the intensive care unit.
Ive got my own, and thats why we were talking, and once youve been there done that, youre in no hurry to do it again. Even if you had a choice.
Which is what you realise when you have one of these experiences. You dont.
So we were empathaising about all those things you never know about until you know. And how it can do your head in, if not the rest of you, it you let it.
But of course once you recover, which the great majority of us do, youve got get back on that horse.
Even if its the horse you fell off in the first place that triggered the whole near death experience.
Youve got to walk back across that gutter (without tripping under a bus this time), or continue to do home renovations without falling through the stairwell etc etc.
Otherwise youll spend the rest of your days cooped up at home peering through the venetians.
Possibly inhaling toxic dust. Because yes, turns out you should have vacuumed more.
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, they say.
The domino effect is real enough, but remember, life is not a drill. A fire drill is though.
So assemble at the staging point, tell your war stories, and then get back to work. Hopefully it wont kill you, this time.
