Situational awareness wasn’t something I studied.
It wasn’t a skill I picked up from a book or a mentor.
It was carved into me, slowly, painfully by the things I survived without even realizing how close I came to not making it.
The Hornet’s Nest Above My Head
I still remember walking under the cocoa trees on the farm, carefree, barefoot, not thinking about anything except maybe climbing something or finding fruit.
Then I looked up.
A hornet’s nest: big, dark, humming, was hanging just inches above my head.
One wrong move and I would’ve been swarmed. I didn’t even know how close I was until I froze and felt the air vibrate.
Falling From Every Tree I Climbed
Mango tree.
Coconut tree
Jackfruit tree.
Caimito tree.
If it had branches, I climbed it.
And if I climbed it, I fell from it at least once.
I can still feel the shock of those falls: the sudden drop, the thud, the sky spinning above me while the wind got punched out of my lungs. Every time I hit the ground, the first thought was always the same:
“Okay… that could’ve gone worse.”
And one day, it almost did.
There was a huge stone right below the Caimito tree I climbed. I didn’t see it. I slipped, fell hard, and everything went dark.
I went unconscious.
Woke up with a fever.
Spent days recovering like nothing happened.
Looking back, it’s wild how close I was to something irreversible. One inch to the left, one inch to the right, and my story could’ve ended right there under that tree.
The River That Tried to Take Me
We lived near the river, and like any kid, I thought water was just water.
Calm. Still. Safe.
I was around five or six, too young to understand depth, too young to know that silence can be dangerous too. I stepped in without thinking, and before I knew it, the ground disappeared under my feet.
There was no current.
No pull.
Just sudden depth and my own inexperience.
I remember the panic, the shock of realizing I couldn’t touch the bottom, the way the world went quiet as I slipped under. I remember the heaviness in my chest, the way fear becomes a physical thing when you don’t know how to fight it.
To escape, I kicked and clawed my way toward the side of the river, using my hands and feet to push through the water any way I could. I wasn’t swimming. I was fighting. I was trying to get back to something solid, something safe.
Somehow, I made it to the edge.
I made it out of the river, coughing, shaking, terrified, but the second my feet touched land, something in me switched. I went home like nothing happened.
No tears. No panic. No confession.
Because I knew one thing for sure: if I told my mother, her wrath would be worse than drowning.
So I walked back like a kid who just wandered off for a few minutes, pretending everything was normal, even though my heart was still racing and my clothes were still heavy with river water.
But I know I nearly drowned.
The Motorcycle Incident That Almost Ended Everything
College gave me freedom, and with freedom came speed.
But heartbreak? That gave me recklessness.
My girlfriend and I had just broken up. I was young, angry, and stupid enough to think pain could be outrun. So I got on my motorcycle and went full throttle, like the faster I went, the less I’d feel.
For a moment, it worked: wind in my face, engine screaming, the world blurring into one long escape.
Then the bike started to wobble.
Not a small shake.
A violent, bone-deep wobble that told me I had pushed it and myself too far.
The world tilted.
The road rushed toward me.
My heart jumped into my throat.
In that split second, everything slowed down.
I felt the weight of the handlebars fighting against me.
I felt the back wheel slipping.
I felt the thin line between living and dying stretch under my tires.
And right there, in the middle of all that chaos, one thought hit me harder than the heartbreak ever did:
I’m not ready to die.
I gripped the handlebars with everything I had, trying to steady the bike, trying to keep myself upright, trying to stay alive. Somehow, the wobble eased. Somehow, the tires found balance again. Somehow, I stayed on the road.
I didn’t crash.
But I came close enough to feel the heat of it.
Close enough to understand that life can change in one heartbeat.
The Cow, the Rope, and the Blackout
But nothing prepared me for the day a cow almost killed me.
I was on a motorcycle with someone, riding up a rough road.
It wasn’t that steep, but steep enough that the driver had to go full throttle to climb it.
We didn’t know there was a cow ahead, huge, tied with a rope stretched across the road like a trap.
The rope blended into the dust and sunlight.
We didn’t see it until it was too late.
The moment we hit it, everything snapped.
The bike jerked.
My body flew.
The world spun into a blur.
I remember the impact.
Then nothing.
I blacked out.
For a moment, I thought I was dead.
When I woke up, I was lying on the ground, the sky above me, my ears ringing.
No broken bones.
No blood.
Just the shock of being thrown out of my own life for a few seconds.
That incident rewired something deep inside me.
How All Those Moments Built My Awareness
People think situational awareness is about paranoia.
For me, it’s the opposite.
It’s calm.
It’s clarity.
It’s the quiet habit of paying attention.
These days, when I enter a room, my mind automatically maps the exits.
When I walk through a crowd, I can feel the “pulse”, who’s tense, who’s relaxed, who’s out of place.
I can sense danger long before it arrives.
Not in a dramatic way, just a subtle shift in the air.
I can sense when someone’s energy is off.
Sometimes it’s in their voice.
Sometimes it’s in the way they move.
Sometimes it’s just a feeling in my chest that says, “Stay alert.”
It’s not fear.
It’s not paranoia.
It’s pattern recognition built from years of surviving things I didn’t see coming.
Every fall, every close call, every moment I almost didn’t make it, those were lessons.
Leave a Reply