Snail Crusher ...

Just a few days back, I took a life. A life of a snail that was trying to cross a pathway that was about 5 metres wide.

Crushed. I could here the crackling sound of the shell as my foot went down on it. It was purely an accident as I was walking towards the car park to collect my car. There and then, a snail was crushed to numerous pieces.

Like every other snail, this one believed that there was fresher grounds and better opportunity elsewhere thus he decided to venture out into the open, carelessly leaving himself exposed and vulnerable to hazardous situations.

Its perhaps due to being overconfident that the snail which probably believed that his shell was made of solid armour that could protect it from all harm and attacks from the weirdest creatures around.

I never felt so much guilt after killing a life as we all know, snails are no pest. They are different from the houseflies, cockroaches and other bugs that are purely irritants.A snail is good for a garden, at least that's what I heard from friends.

After what has happened, I realised that's how life is, not only for creepy crawlies like ants, grasshoppers etc. It also happens to us as human beings - conquerors of this planet earth.

It probably took hours for the snail to reach its intended destination and along the way, some murderer came along and destroyed everything it has ever wanted to have. I guess its the same for us in life. We too started off on a long journey from a toddler to a junior school student, through college and then to work.

Along this journey, we stumble upon many hurdles but we often get pass it. Each time we successfully get out of a bad situation, we gain confidence. We often challenge ourselves to seek our goals, to find better opportunities and to never give up. We search for what we strongly believe in and often we find it.

Day after day, we work hard and we work smart too. Given time, we get so good at what we do that we take things for granted. We didn't bother to calculate risks, we didn't heed the advices of the elders because we always believed what we did was always correct.

We grew overconfident, just like the snail did. We made one wrong step and what we have taken years and years to build came crashing down. We lost everything like how the snail lost its shell and unfortunately its life too.

I guess many times, we get caught unaware of life's happenings as we grow so fond of the way things are always done. We didn't feel there was a need for self improvement nor did we find a need to prepare a backup plan just in case things didn't turn out as planned.

Let's learn from the crushed snail that life isn't at all easy and smooth and sometimes, things do turn out negative. Should we feel that there indeed is a need to to venture into things that's a little more uncertain, do the mathematics and weigh the risks. This way, you could save your shell from being crushed. Being careful is always a virtue but being paranoid is a surely a no-no.