I’ve always remembered a line from Mary Schmich’s famous essay Wear Sunscreen, later popularized as a graduation speech. She says that some of the most important moments in your life will happen “on some ordinary Tuesday.”
For me, that turned out to be true.
It began as a completely normal day at work. Nothing felt out of place. Same routine, same responsibilities, the kind of day that passes quietly without leaving a mark.
Then, at 2 a.m., my phone rang.
I was told that the warehouse where I worked, the place I helped manage every day, had caught on fire.
I won’t go into all the details of what happened. Some situations are too complex, too personal, and honestly, the specifics are not what mattered most in the end.
What mattered was what it forced me to confront.
Up until that night, I had a comfortable life. I was managing operations, solving practical problems, doing work that was simple but necessary. Things were stable. Predictable. In many ways, life was functioning on autopilot.
And that comfort can be dangerous.
Because deep down, I knew it wasn’t allowing me to become the person I wanted to be. I wasn’t unhappy, but I wasn’t growing in the direction that mattered to me. I was maintaining something that worked, instead of building something that challenged me.
The first emotion I felt was relief. Nobody was hurt. That is the only thing that truly matters when something like this happens.
But even with that relief, there was still pain.
Because it wasn’t just a building. It was a pillar for me and my family. Something we relied on. Something that seemed almost automatic, like it would always be there, until suddenly it wasn’t.
Watching something so central disappear overnight changes the way you see stability. It changes the way you think about control. It makes you realize how quickly life can shift without asking for permission.
It took time to process that loss. It took time to rebuild, not only externally, but internally. But slowly, things started to improve.
That experience pushed me to reevaluate my life and take control of the direction it was going. To stop drifting inside what was comfortable, and start moving toward what I truly wanted.
This story isn’t over. But it is moving forward.
And every day, it looks a little brighter.