A warning: Don’t become over-reliant on your cellphone.

Short anecdote to help convey my point: My wife was recently t-boned by a car that ran a red light while it was escaping police. The first thing she did was call me sobbing, tell me with almost no detail what happened, then stopped talking and after 3-4 minutes of silence the line went dead. I thought she had died. I thought that I had just heard my wife speak her last words and die while still on the line with me. I hope I don’t have to clarify what I was going through following that phone call. Only almost an hour later did I find out that one of the officers pursuing the perp had stopped and began talking to her, which is why she stopped talking on the phone and didn’t reply to me. There are a number of lessons to be learned from this incident, but the one I’ll focus on for this post is cellphones and their use as a tool, not a liability.My point: Oftentimes the first thing we do in an emergency is call a loved one, usually seeking help or comfort. Someone to appeal to. This thought process is not only dangerous, but a waste of precious time that in the incident could mean life or death.We must remember, no one is coming to save you. YOU are the only person who will save yourself on that day.In a REAL emergency (life-threatening), your loved one answering the phone and immediately driving to you still won't save you. You will die regardless.But in addition to that, everything besides real, life-threatening emergencies are just inconveniences. Remember, there was a time when cell phones did not exist. What did the average person do when there was an "emergency" [inconvenience] like their car breaking down or running out of gas far away from town, getting lost in the woods, going into labor, or breaking an arm or leg at work? They couldn't call their family for help, they just figured it out. And we can too.We as humans haven't lost the ability to help ourselves, and in a real emergency that is the ONLY option anyways. So don't let our cellphones become a crutch. Use them as a tool, but be aware of their limitations and don’t let them make you complacent. Thank you for listening to my rant, hope my story can help someone else. via /r/CCW https://ift.tt/2U885c3