Today’s first thought…
My niece is currently 4 feet tall and already a philosopher. The other day, she said,
“Say what you mean & mean what you say. Just don’t be mean when you say it.”
Kids really do know what they’re doing these days.
Thank God for the ‘Near Miss’
I received a text from my friend Jodie this morning. She wrote to me: “Did you know a giant space rock almost ended humanity on this date in 1989?”
“Good morning to you too, Jodie.”
I called her back right after, and she was super excited about it. Jodie’s deeply into space trivia, so I try to lend my most eager ear whenever she’s talking about space-related stuff. And she tells me, this asteroid named 4581 Asclepius, just this massive chunk of space debris, missed Earth by just 500,000 miles on March 23, 1989. “In cosmic terms,” Jodie said, “that’s like a bullet grazing your ear.” The wildest part? We didn’t even see it until after it passed. We dodged planetary extinction and only found out we were in danger once we were safe.
Then she told me about Near Miss Day: the unofficial holiday born of that event, dedicated to celebrating close calls. “In science,” she said, “a near miss is the most valuable data point you can get. It means the system worked. Or proof you got lucky and should probably pay attention.” That inspired me thoroughly. So today, I’m celebrating my personal near misses: Like that neon green suit I almost bought for my sister’s wedding in 2019. That could’ve been a disaster.
We obsess over wins and losses all the time. But near misses? Those are invisible miracles. The disasters you sidestepped. The mistakes you caught in time. That one asteroid you never saw coming. Celebrate what didn’t happen, my friend. Because it probably saved you more times than you know.
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Previously Published
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