Expecting the unexpected is what I came to live by this past summer.

Toiling as a copy editor for the Arlington Heights-based newspaper Daily Herald, bracing myself for unorthodox, disturbing and downright goofy news was something I did on a regular basis. Because Daily Herald zones, meaning it caters to a barrage of Chicago suburban counties by furnishing localized editions of the newspaper to each area’s readers, night editors essentially are informed on the glut of the state’s news in a single night.

As a copy editor, rimming stories for all of the counties each evening is commonplace.

By the time the dog days of summer hit, I became to privy to editing sickening reports such as a father videotaping a young teen in the privacy of her home by concealing a camera within a lava lamp he sold her, or a teen striking his sibling with a meat cleaver.

But as much as I became accustomed to editing heartbreaking or quirky news stories, never for one second did I think one of the stories I would tackle and tweak would hit home in such a heart-wrenching manner. Since my hometown is a zone covered by the Daily Herald, occasionally I would recognize a familiar name or two in print, albeit in the police blotter or in a soft news story.

In the moonlight hours one soggy evening my Herald friend, who worked as the cops night reporter at our bureau, informed me a young woman was hospitalized with head trauma and in critical condition after a semi-trailer truck plowed into her car in my hometown.

Accustomed to the most melancholy of stories, I jokingly said I probably knew the person, which I presumed was very unlikely since my town has a population exceeding 200,000.

But after the reporter stumbled over the pronunciation of the woman’s last name I nearly choked in disbelief. The young woman was a cheerful and caring person I had become well acquainted with in high school after sitting through four painstaking years of French class with her and also assisting special education classes beside her and her boyfriend.

Less than an hour after I had heard the paralyzing news, the hospital informed us she had died. Frozen in fear and shock, I cringed as I sifted through our network’s photos of her mangled car from the crash. Luckily, I was fortunate not to have to paginate the page the report on her death would appear.

Quite frankly though, I was astonished at what an impact her death had on me. After attending the wake and seeing the cutesy photos of her as a sticky-fingered toddler and at other stages in her life, my perspective on life seemed to shift only slightly, but nonetheless distinctly.

Right from the get-go I had found myself dreading the 40-minute commute to work and the road-ragers that came along with it, stressing myself out over my productivity at work and snapping at friends and family over petty ordeals.

In turn, I had allowed myself to get so consumed by my own self-centered interests and goals that I forgotten what was really important, as cliche as that might sound.

My high school pal’s death was the turning point of the summer, and as it rapidly wound down I let my guard down a bit, appreciated the little free time with friends that remained and ultimately clamored to translate my selfishness into selflessness.

Unfortunately, sometimes we all need a wake up call in the most jarring fashion to help us get our priorities in order and to give us a fresh perspective on our lives.

That’s not always the case however. Changing for the better and adopting a fresh perspective is something we are all capable of doing if we just take things in stride, look for the similar in the dissimilar, don’t let our work eat us alive and live just a little more courageously.