“It takes a serious, significant even for one to understand that power we possess in the form of choice.”

It was on this night, I learned exactly what that statement meant. If you’ve heard of Murphy’s Law, this is a pretty good example of that.

This event was one, if not the most, signal event that turned my life around, in a good way.

With that being said, I must say it was one of the best things that could have ever happened to me.

This is my story.

One night, after a game of pool with a few coworkers, I left a pool hall to find my hometown must have gotten every bit of rain and thunder for the entire year in one night.

I noticed the roads were a mess, so I decided to take a detour to avoid the traffic jams. How would I have known that this one little turn would have such a huge impact.

The roads were flooded and Monte Carlo’s aren’t exactly made to trek through it. My car ended up in a ditch by being carried off by a heavy current in the street.

Water soon filled my car because the only way to get out was by opening the door. A few seconds and my car was completely dead.

Along with my cell phone and whatever else was in the car afterwards.

So here I am. Soaked to the bone; carless, phone-less and walking along the side of the road in the middle of the night.

I made my way to my old buddy’s house when a car pulled up beside me. The window went down and a man’s voice asked if I was okay and if I needed help. I mentioned what had happened and asked if I could borrow a phone.

He said he didn’t have one but he would take me to wherever I needed to go to get some help.

Obviously not thinking clearly, I accepted and got in the back seat. No sooner did I close the door, did it lock and the car began to speed off down the street like a bat out of hell and, if it wasn’t bad enough, the click of a .38 chamber was heard.

I knew then, I was being robbed.

I was driven to the middle of a construction site and pulled out of the car. Soon after, a fist flew into my face and my wallet was taken from me. I turned back to find myself in a staring contest with the barrel of a revolver.

After going through my wallet, whoever hit me, threw it to the ground and said something I’ll never forget,

“We have your I.D.  We KNOW where you live. If you tell the police, we will find you and we will kill you.”

They took off and left me there. I was thankful as I never updated my address on my drivers license in years (Hooray for procrastination) but I couldn’t see a foot in front of me as I had been wearing my glasses at the time and they were smashed, along with my nose.

So I walked around like a zombie because I couldn’t see anything in front of me and I didn’t want to smash my nose again, following the street lights to find a neighborhood. I knocked on every door.

Rang every door bell.

No one came.

No one was there.

That is until I saw two little red lights down in the distance. They looked like tail lights of a still running vehicle.

While I made my way to the lights, I won’t lie and say I didn’t think it was the same car that I had recently been pulled out of. I get closer and realize it’s a truck.

Even closer, there are two women in the truck. At this point, I am doing EVERYTHING I can to not look scary or intimidating in any way.

Yeah, I failed.

They screamed bloody murder at the top of their lungs at the first sight of me. I began to wave my arms and I remember saying, “No no no no. Please don’t go. I need help, I was just robbed.”

They calmed down and opened their door and asked what happened. They called the police for me, gave me a blanket because I was soaked and drove me back to my home.

It wasn’t until I got a glance in the mirror, I realized why I freaked them out so bad.

I had no idea my nose was bleeding so badly because of the rain!! I’m shocked they didn’t have a heart attack or shoot me on sight (Texans don’t play).

Afterwards, life took a turn for the worst. My car was destroyed, my phone was broken, all my cash was stolen, almost lost my job and almost failed all of my courses in college at that time.

Now mix that with all the anger of, “How could this happen to me after everything I went through. Why me? What the hell!?” and you can’t a negative atom bomb that blows on the slightest touch.

I’ve never been so angry, negative and I’ve never been SOOOO close to giving up, as I was in this time in my life.

This was the tipping point in my life. That ONE pivotal moment that would change EVERYTHING.

A choice had to be made. Whether I wanted to make it or not.

I chose to not give up and continue. All the dust cleared and I was able to clear my head, I just kept on. I refused to let this ruin me. I refused to let this destroy everything I had worked for.

And I did it.

I graduated, move out of that town, and eventually went to start my own business along with a few extra side projects that ended up turning out to my advantage.

Everything I wanted to happen, happened when I decided to NOT GIVE UP.

Unbeknownst to me, this one horrible night would be the most important night of my life. It was this night, that I learned how hot the fire really was and that I had no reason to be afraid of it.

Fear slowly slipped away from me the further I continued past this event. As the saying goes,

“Life changes when you realize you aren’t made of glass.”

Article written by Sean Burton

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