Why My Cracked iPhone Screen Makes Me Smile

The past couple of weeks (heck, months) have consisted of a lot of things simply going wrong. My GPA fell. My debit card was hacked. I went through a painful and much dreaded breakup. I caught a nasty virus. I got a terrible sunburn. I lost money. I cracked my iPhone screen. Need I continue?

I found myself starting to have tunnel vision in the sense that I couldn’t see past the cumulation of little things supposedly falling apart in my life. And it truly wasn’t until I hit rough turbulence on a flight back from my vacation in Hawaii that something just hit me.

What a privilege it is to feel annoyance over the trivial things in life. Because do you know what that means? It means that the important things in life are going right. When awful things happen in life, and I mean really terrible occurrences which make you fear for your life, the little things instantly fade away. Flying over the Pacific Ocean and feeling the airplane swivel and tremble fourty thousand feet in the air, the thought “this is how it ends” seriously crossed my mind. All the little things instantly dissipated and all I could think about was my desire to just live.

Of course there was probably nothing ever wrong with the plane, but I think these small scares are sometimes good to experience to clear the glasses through which we see our world. Bring in some perspective. Make the bigger picture more visible.

Several years ago in high school Spanish class I watched a movie about the 1972 Andes flight disaster, where a plane carrying a rugby team crashed, killing most of the passengers and putting the final sixteen survivors through indescribable horror. Several weeks ago I ran across an article that interviewed Roberto Canessa, one of the survivors. Several of his quotes (and life mentalities) have stuck with me ever since.

That if you have sleep, water to drink, and decent food, you are lucky. Don’t wait for your plane to crash to realize how lucky you are. Be more grateful for life. You can wait for the helicopter, but don’t wait too long.

In life there is a moment to wait and see what happens, but there is also a moment to get active. Walk out and search for your own helicopter, otherwise you will succumb. Don’t be seduced by your own ego and think you’re better than other people, because that’s the beginning of being unsuccessful. Every day, try to do something positive, so that when you put your head on the pillow you can ask yourself if you are a good person or not. The next day, try to do better.

Why do we need to wait for terrible things to happen to realize just how good we had it? Why not start now?

Every day something new and terrible seems to happen — shootings, terrorist attacks, natural disasters. The ugly truth of the matter is any of that could happen to any of us any day — disaster does not discriminate. All it takes is being at the wrong place at the wrong time. I’m not trying to be morbid, but I do think it’s important to recognize that none of us are immune.

The truth of the matter is the miniscule annoyances we face every day are just a byproduct of a lot of things going right. My falling GPA is a result of having access to an excellent education. My debit card fraud is a result of being lucky enough to have money in the first place. My breakup happened because I had the privilege to experience love. And my cracked iPhone screen. It’s just a reminder that I’m lucky enough to live in a culture where iPhones are the norm.

I encourage you to try to view life through this lens. Recognize when you’re getting worked up over something that in the big spectrum of things, is not as terrible as it initially seems. Don’t wait for an airplane crash to start to appreciate each and every day.