We're all more than the person we show to everyone else.

How many people have gotten older and forgotten about the things they hoped for and dreamed about when they were young? Or given up without ever taking a chance, or settled in life because it's easier, or they're scared, or whatever other excuses? How many people need a reminder of who they once were?

Sometimes a shock to the system is a good thing, you know? Like a reminder that you're alive.

I’ve got this tiny pang of regret when I think of how much I have probably missed out on in the last few years because I was too scared to take a risk, or too shy to speak up, or too worried to be bold.

I closed my eyes and listened to the occasional chirps of tiny birds hidden in the trees around us, the bubbling of water over rocks down below, cicadas rattling a chorus off in the distance. All sounds of the world carrying on like it always had. So much could change or be lost, and still, the rest of the world went on like it was nothing. It didn't seem wrong, but it didn't seem right either. I'd gone on today like it was nothing. I'd laughed and felt happy and forgotten for a little while that this was now a world without my brother in it.

But when’s the last time you took a chance? Or didn’t do what someone else expected of you? Or did something you really wanted to, even though you probably shouldn’t have?

Nothing could be left to chance, because chance, after all, can be dangerous. But what I didn't realize all that time, what I missed all along, is that chance is everywhere. It's also what life is made of. It's all around us, but most of the time we never see it working.