I like to think of myself as a sensible, careful person. I don’t take unnecessary risks as a general rule. I appreciate dangerous tools. I don’t use them in foolish ways. Most of the time.

Today I experienced that 0.1% of the time. I was using a razor blade knife to cut some crumpled tape that had been wrapped around a cord. Cutting at the tape in a more careful manner was not yielding results, so I gripped it a bit more firmly and sliced at it again. A sudden sensation in my finger made me realize I had not only cut the tape.

When one cuts oneself there is always that moment of uncertainty when you cannot tell just how bad it is yet. Would there be a lot of blood or a little? In this case it was more than a little but less than a lot. I had managed to avoid a serious wound. I was, quite frankly, lucky. It could have–perhaps even should have–been much worse. I treated it and, other than realizing how much I require my left pinky in typing, went about my business.

I was a bit shaky the rest of my shift. There may have been some minor shock involved, but I suspect it was primarily from realizing how stupid I’d been and how close I’d come to a trip to the emergency room. I only let down my usual guard of carefulness for a moment, and that had been all it took.

Life is precarious, really. We continue to live as much by accident as by design. Though I suppose a certain amount of safety can be reasonably assumed (if not, quite frankly, it would be most difficult to accomplish much in life), it doesn’t take much to remind oneself that living is as much a failure to die as anything else. It only takes one time of not thinking things through to lose the use of a finger. It only takes one time of trusting another driver too much to become a quadriplegic. It only takes one time of being in the wrong place at the wrong time to become an entry on the obituary page.

I do not intend to be morbid. My purpose is really to remind myself and anyone else who will listen that there is only so much we can do. We should take reasonable precautions. We should be prepared for unwanted outcomes. But ultimately there comes a point where further worry is counterproductive. We could be the most careful, most prepared person on the planet and still get struck by a falling piece of Skylab.

Self reliance includes preparing for unpleasant contingencies, but you simply cannot prepare for everything. There comes a point when all reasonable precautions have been taken and you must simply continue living, primarily on faith. Self reliance helps make that easier, in helping you know that you’ve done what you can. The rest is beyond your control.