The Time I Got Hit By a Truck and Met my Subconscious
I totaled my car, but what price is a car to find out who you are?
That’s my old 2002 Ford Taurus—my first car.
This picture was taken on the last day I saw it, just after taking all the NIN and Guns & Roses CDs out of the glove box.
This was several carless months after the accident. When I finally was able to get a ride up 1.5 hours north to where it sat totaled in an impound yard.
For any 19-year-old being carless is like standing in cement.
You’re not going anywhere.
But what I didn’t know is that this life-changing car accident would teach me two very important lessons.
And while I would have preferred the Universe used a gentler touch in teaching them to me… it knows that I’m a hands-on learner and in this instance, it had to use a more direct approach to make sure I learned these two early.
Lesson #1: I needed to learn how to ask for help.
I am a ruthlessly stubborn bastard.
Everyone else has known this about me since I ever.
I only recently learned it, and that’s good because I wouldn’t be able to tell this story right if I hadn’t realized that yet.
When I decide I have a way of doing things, I do things that way.
I am disciplined to a fault.
My parents taught me that everything is my fault, and my responsibility, engraining a Military work ethic in me through and through. And that I needed to continue to do everything as an army of one.
Obviously, that wasn’t going to work.
Losing my car humbled me.
I saved up for a year for it and it was totaled.
That meant I was going to have to get a new job to buy another, and that job was going to need to be close to the garage I lived out of.
I found one within a day or two, and I walked to work each day in the snow.
My girlfriend at the time started picking me up on dates, which wasn’t so bad.
But I didn’t want to be limited to the job I could walk to. I had dabbled previously in online business and mostly did graphic design off and on.
Amazingly enough, I had a lead on a client who wanted to retain me for the long term.
From my mom of all people.
To me, this was a path to getting a new car.
But here’s the problem.
They live 45 minutes away, and it was still the dead of winter.
So, I had to ask for help. Funny enough, the first few people I asked told me they couldn't. Then the last person I expected to help, was the only one who could.
We made it to the clients' house.
I was trying not to smell like I needed this to work out.
So, instead of pitching them, I decided I was just going to spend the day getting to work. And we did.
When my ride came back, I got to tell them it worked out.
I overcame my adversity.
And we celebrated with Five Guys.
A very American celebration. That’s lesson #1. And that combination of humility and assertiveness has served me well in life.
But not as well as the second lesson I learned from my car accident.
Lesson #2: I needed to meet the other part of me.
This is the real point of this story.
It’s just the hardest part to tell.
A lot easier than the ‘entrepreneurial upstart overcomes adversity’ part of the story.
I’ve been telling that story my whole life because it’s easier.
But something else happened that day, that’s taken me a decade to unpack.
It’s hard to describe so I’ll just say that day I learned that I’m not alone.
And that when I am out there, pursuing my goals, it’s not just me out there.
This lesson is what gave me the courage to eventually spend the next several years traveling the world and doing things many people are too afraid to do.
And it all started the day of that blizzard when an 18-wheeler merged into my lane and sent my rickety Ford Taurus into a 720* spin going 60mph on the I-75.
The necessary backstory.
I’ll keep this part brief.
Being an Air Force brat, I moved a lot. 36 times by the time I was 18. But most of that happened before I was 14.
That streak broke when I spent 4 years in Michigan, the longest I had been anywhere, and made close (now life-long) friends.
They were important to me, as was finishing out school and just not moving again.
So, when my parents divorced again, I was 16 and that meant I had to go with them.
Again, I’m a stubborn bastard, so I decided I was going to just finish out high school on my own.
This actually worked out well for a time, but for reasons that belong to another story, I had to move once more and finish out school living in the country cornfields of Ohio.
Ironically, graduation from the same high school my Grandpa rebelliously tore motorcycles through. This left such an impression on the teachers there, that their children, who became teachers, would tell the story to me.
Being stubborn, I graduated early, with the final class to graduate from that building, the Spring before they leveled it that Summer.
Anyways, it was a tradition for me to drive up and visit my Michigan friends and they would come down to see me. We would do this a few times a year.
And it was my turn next.
But there was an ice storm coming.
Built country tough.
If you’ve seen me, I’m not a country guy. Everyone else in my family is. But I always looked like I would talk my way out of a problem if you know what I mean.
Or into one.
I have tattoos, at the time piercings, and read poetry in a non-ironic way.
But maybe my years in the country made me feel country tough because I decided that storm warnings applied to other people and not me.
And that if I made plans, there were happening.
I planned to head up North after I got off work.
On the way, I could only see about 20% of my windshield. I made it 30 minutes before I decided to buy myself some time and stop to see my cousin, who lived by the highway on the way out of town.
I killed time there for a couple of hours, ate some Subway, and waited while my friends sent me texts about the party they were putting together for me when I arrived.
This filled me with guilt because I was at this point debating not going.
I was a little scared of the drive.
Looking back, I realize my intuition was telling me, I should not go.
I felt scared, but that didn’t mean I shouldn’t do it.
And I didn’t want to let them down.
And like two highly-reactive chemicals in a beaker, a chemical reaction takes place in my brain, in the same way, it takes place an infinite number of times in every near-twenty-something man’s brain, combusting until only a single thought emerged from my not-yet fully developed brain:
Fuck it, I’m invincible.
And I’m going.
And I did.
I drove for 30 minutes, and it was awful.
I debated going home most of the way. I have reoccurring anxiety, so this thought didn’t surprise me. Instead of listening to it, I put on some motivational tapes about learning NLP and hyper-focus on them as I lean a little too close to the windshield for a better view forward.
45 more minutes of this in and the storm lets up.
I’m fully relieved and let go of the doubt. And actually start enjoying myself.
I decide I’m going to make it and commit 100% to get there.
The drive is only 4 hours, on a normal day, that isn’t anything. And I can actually see more than 10 feet in front of me now, so this trip is looking up.
But about 1.5 hours in, the storm kicks into overdrive…
And it’s a whiteout.
My Ford Taurus, like me, has no clue how ill-suited it is for these conditions.
Luckily, I don’t see any other cars on the road.
It’s just me, and an 18-wheeler in the truck lane a bit ahead of me.
I’m going 65mph, and overtaking it. Spending those years in icy Michigan, I know not to brake and just take it smoothly.
I feel a sense of comradery with this truck, knowing we’re the only one’s out here.
And even a little envy as I see how tightly his many wheels grip the road, as my little Taurus shakes in my hands.
Then I notice that those tires are gripping a little closer than they should be.
And in fact, we’re sharing a lane.
What was my lane.
I let my steering wheel shake a little more to the left to make room.
At this point, my body is beginning to act on its own.
I’m no longer thinking, and…
I realize that I am no longer in control.
And I realize the truth is, I’m not invincible.
This isn’t normal.
That’s the first thing I felt.
This is not a normal situation, and I don’t feel like I normally do.
But I don’t feel worse.
I feel both more present…
I can feel the faux leather of the steering wheel cracking and drying beneath my hands gripping it for dear life…
I also feel less in control…
My illusion of control is quickly dispelled as I watch the scene from a bystander's point of view. The pillar that was central to my false confidence has completely collapsed and I know instantly I am out of my depth.
And in the same moment, I discover I am not alone.
Some part of me took control.
It didn’t ask for permission.
I didn’t hear a voice of guidance on the right thing to do.
I just watched my body move on its own.
My arms flattened against the top of my steering wheel by themselves.
…Why are we doing this?
My knees perched up against the bottom of the wheel and I loosely braced.
…Are we sure about this?
After watching my body moving on its own, I turn to the right and I see the metal bars that protect the rear 9 wheels of this semi-truck move rapidly toward my view outside the passenger window.
Straight at me, with only a pane of glass between us.
My car is completely horizontal and underneath the truck at this point.
And there is no sound.
I can feel the connection between my body and the road. Like a force pushing down through me, into the road. I can feel the difference in the traction, the way my body is beginning to feel like a weightless free object hovering in the seat.
I hold on to the wheel, as my car and the rear cage of the truck collide.
And for the first moment in some time, I have a thought:
“It’s not going to drive over me is it?”
It didn’t.
Instead, the cage punched a hole straight into the side right of my car, and the force sent me into a spiral in the other direction.
Being still oddly perched on the wheel of my car, my body moved like a floating object along with the wheel, which quickly changed orientation.
It’s at this moment, that I come back and I’m there for what happens next.
And then it was over.
With my car, and me in it, sticking out of the ditch at an odd angle, nose down—smoke pouring out of it.
I step out of my car and into the blizzard and it occurs to me, I’m probably not going to make it to the party.
I’m not even close.
And I’m not even close to home either.
I’m almost halfway between both.
But I do see the truck driver up ahead.
I wave at them while calling the police.
And I watch them as they peel off into the white distance.
I didn’t even bother taking a photo, my eyes can barely see them at this point.
They’re gone.
After a few moments, from the other direction, I see the red and blue lights rhythmically pushing through the layers of white.
Grandpa to the Rescue
In the end, my Grandpa who originally cautioned me against going was the one who came and picked me up.
I sat with the police for 2 hours at a McDonalds while he came to get me.
He made 1 or 2 jokes after getting into the truck.
And then he didn’t say anything else the whole way back.
Which is good, I didn’t want and couldn’t talk about it yet.
I know I made a mistake by trying to go.
The accident ended up being no-fault because the truck driver was never found.
But at least I was okay.
Thanks to what happened… and the help I received.
The Conclusion
Losing my car led to me having to get a new car, which led to me having to take matters into my own hands to get new clients…
Because I had to.
It also led to me meeting the part of me that can function beyond fear.
And that’s the important lesson I learned from this experience and the thing about me that changed from this experience.
Because not long after this experience, I would manage to buy a new car (one worth several times my old Taurus) and go on to abandon it to move to Malaysia.
I didn’t love making those payments in a currency I didn’t earn in anymore, but what I gained from that experience was far, far worth the cost of one car. Or two.
What I would later learn in psychology is called your Daemon—your intuition, your inner guidance, your unconscious mind.
Feeling this part of me take over, helped me recognize what it feels like when I am standing in my way, and when the better, wiser part of me is stepping in to help.
This led to me learning how to decipher the signal of my fear from my intuition and realize that I can go do far more than I believe I am capable of.
And that if I go far outside of my comfort zone I can handle it.
Because it’s not just me there.
This realization led to me traveling to Malaysia to pursue the job of my dreams, becoming an international expert, and enjoying the life of a digital nomad for 7+ years. Going on to lecture at universities internationally, despite never graduating from one in my home country.
And doing numerous other things an emo country kid should not normally have done.
But most importantly, it taught me what the sound of my intuition sounds like.
So, that I could do those things.
Knowing that even if I do encounter a Blizzard out there, and that even if things go catastrophically wrong, there is a part of me I can trust, to make the best of the situation that it can.
And we’ll make it out okay.
What I found
And what I found, is if I listen to my intuition when deciding what to do I don’t have to rely on my subconscious to bail me out of a life-or-death scenario.
Instead, I appear to have ‘luck.’
I am in the right places at the right time. I blurt out the right thing to say when I need to.
I’m not a passenger in my own life, but I’m not the only one driving, either.
And that while it’s okay if I underestimate myself, it would be wise not to underestimate myself when I have the full support of the sage part of me.
This experience helped me learn I can be the person who is afraid, and expand my limits, while still being the person who can do that successfully.
And just because I’m afraid of something, doesn’t mean I should be.
Or that the fear is going to stop me from coming out the other end.
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