On May 2, 2011 something happened that bore a massive deal of significance to the people of the United States, and furthermore, sent a shock wave around the planet, reaching even those currently residing underneath rocks, because, well, that’s how shock waves work.

Almost 10 years after his followers had sacrificed themselves for their own personal brand of “the greater good” by brutally and mercilessly shattering the hearts and unnerving the minds of the American people, the man we call Osama Bin Laden was gunned down by American soldiers in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

At the time, I was in the kitchen loading the dishwasher when Wolf Blitzer’s voice began beating against my ear drums from the other room. Now, there’s only two things that would make my wife change over to the evening news: a) the weather is taking a turn for the worse and we have to keep an eye out and make sure we remain in Kansas, or b) something serious is going down.

So I, of course, immediately step away from the dishwasher and squint at the TV screen (I have a bad habit of taking my glasses off and not putting them back on) and I see the headline reads “Osama Bin Laden Is Dead.”

My reaction was something akin to a Lil Jon sentiment, because all I could say was “What?!”

The babyface responded with an equally fitting “Yeah!”

And for me, that was that.

I think it was actually more of a “They’re still looking for him?” kind of reaction than anything.

To me, it wasn’t a cause for celebration.

Yes, I’m a Canadian and was living in the great white north when 9/11 went down, so it didn’t hit on a personal level like it would have if I were a bona fide American, but being that it happened only 950 miles (as the Boeing 767 flies) away, and that it happened to our big brother, no less, it shook us too.

I, too, clearly remember where I was when I heard and the emotion I felt when I did.

I remember skipping class and sitting in the sorry excuse for a cafeteria in my high-school when a guy named Rob Fugiel came in exclaiming that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center.

I also remember not knowing what the World Trade Center was when he had said that.

I remember word spreading around the school very fast.

I remember classes stopping and everyone huddled into classrooms watching everything unfold on the news, surrounded by the sounds of gasps and cries, shock and awe.

I even remember feeling a twinge of restlessness.

Feeling unsafe.

Feeling uneasy and unsure of what was to come.

I felt it.

Regardless, almost 10 years later, retrospectively assessing my feelings of the death of Bin Laden, I realized what I didn’t feel was that any kind of justice was being served.

I didn’t view this assassination as any kind of victory.

Don’t get me wrong, I understand the significance.

He was the mastermind.

He guided those kamikaze terrorists to board those airplanes with the intention of doing nothing but seeing that they crashed, killing as many people as possible to send a grisly message to the people of the land of the free and the home of the brave.

For lack of an interest in finding a more suitable way of putting this: he sucked.

But ultimately, what has his death really done?

The way I see it, it only exacerbates terrorism.

If finding and killing this man was worth 10 years, two wars, nearly 1,000,000 innocent lives and over 1,000,000,000,000 dollars to the United States, imagine what he’s worth to the other side.

If they were willing to sacrifice their lives the way they did 10 years ago, then there’s no doubt in my mind that they’re willing to sacrifice a lot more in the days, weeks, months and years to come.

And this jubilation expressed by the American people?

This glee and celebration?

This gloating?

Aren’t we supposed to be above that?

I mean, I might not have lost anyone or even knew anyone who lost someone because of this man or any other being’s callous acts of terrorism, but gloating in the wake of the loss of any one’s life, man or woman, no matter how badly they may have broken your heart, and no matter how much innocence they may have robbed you of, is something we should all be ashamed of, or at the very least, seriously question if the celebration is warranted.

You can sit there and use the day-old excuse that we’re only human, but that, to me, is something we need to stop hiding behind, as if being a hominid is some type of malady.

Being human, as challenging as it may be, what with all of the overwhelming emotions and decisions we encounter, is an incredible blessing, not a curse.

We are not unavoidably plagued with the issues that present themselves along the paths we walk.

And do you know why?

We choose these paths.

Being human doesn’t automatically mean that they are chosen for us and we have to live with whatever chips fall in whatever fashion suits them.

We can deflect these chips.

We can arrange the crumbles when the cookie falls apart.

We can choose to walk another path if we don’t like the one we’re on.

A lot of us, however, stay on the path we’re already on, despite the fact that it’s not really going anywhere promising.

We stick with it and convince ourselves that it was the only one and then blame everything on the path instead of facing the music.

Something to the tune of “you are your own worst enemy.”

Sure, we want nothing more than the safety of our loved ones and justice being brought to those who harm them, but we’re also an intelligent species capable of rising above and figuring a way out of this infernal cycle we seem to adhere ourselves to entirely too comfortably.

In the immortal words of The Wilson Phillips, “break free from the chains”.

Instead of waiting for the moment that you’re forced to seek justice, why not do your part to prevent the lady ever be searched for at all?

Maybe its naive to think that we, as a race, can all accomplish some sense of happiness and freedom some day without causing any harm to anyone else along the way, especially when so many of us are on so many different pages with regards to our beliefs and our morals, causing an ever present sense of conflict, but as long as we can appreciate that we all believe what we do for us and leave others to believe what they do for them, it shouldn’t really matter what page we’re on as long as we all understand that we’re all reading the same book.