The Road That Should Be Less Traveled On

The
Road That Should Be Less Travelled On

On
July 9, 2019, the world lost someone whose goals in this life were to
better the world and make everyone around him as happy as they could
be. Dylan Manuel Cervantes was one of my closest friends, and at 9:05
pm that night, he hit a John Deer Loader that was partially blocking
the northbound lane of the road that was on without hesitation. Not
only did I lose someone that day, but the days following whenever I
had to drive somewhere, I realized how such a scenario could have
happened to me instead of him. Thoughts rushed my mind such as “If
I wasn’t paying attention and ran that stop sign back there, I’d be
just as dead as he is.” and I was not in a healthy mental state.
But as I grieved, I realized that I was thinking about driving in the
wrong way. Rather than having the mentality of “what ifs” I
should rather be helping myself and others become safer drivers. That
prevented such incidents from happening on my side as much as I
possibly could. The rest of the summer I tried my best to figure out
what bad driving habits I had, and fix them as much as possible. One
thing I realized is that even though I don’t physically pick up my
phone while I drive, I still had a tendency of looking at my screen
if it lit up while it was in the spot I put my phone in. To fix this,
and overall to make myself feel safer when I drive, I put my phone on
do not disturb, and I put it in the glovebox until I reach my
destination. After a week of doing this, I felt overall a lot safer
while driving. When school started up, My government teacher,
Mr.Scott, gave us a strong, powerful lecture on our relationship with
our phones, as it was only ten minutes into class and almost everyone
had already been focused on their phone screens rather than the
lecture. He then challenged us. To leave our phones in our car for
one school day or in our bag, untouched, to see how addicted we were
to our phones, as technology can be an addiction. Dylan’s death hurt
me and still does to this day, but his death also opened my eyes to
realize that there’s a whole world for me to discover for him, and I
can’t do that if I end up just like him. And I thank him so much for
how he impacted my life in such a way to make me change the way I
live to live more like him.