Before coming to Madrid, we were given one warning multiple times: Watch out for pickpockets. Madrid is a very safe city but it you aren’t diligent, you’ll all of a sudden discover that your phone/wallet/money is gone. It happens all around you everyday, you just don’t know it (which is the point). It’s a part of living in Madrid.

On the metro this past week, someone attempted to rob someone else, but the victim of the robbery noticed. This may sound like a very unsurprising and boring story, but this was probably the scariest situation I have been in during my time here.

I was on the metro, and we stopped at a station that wasn’t mine. The doors were all open and I remained on the train. All of a sudden, I heard a loud scream. Someone ran by extremely fast, and there was a chorus of gasps. I froze. I had no idea of what was happening, but I assumed that it was not going to end well for me.

The most dominant thought that came to mind was of all of the terrorism happening in the world right now. It is typically small acts of terror in public places; such as a metro stop in the middle of Madrid, for example. I was in a very public place and we were all extremely vulnerable. Thankfully this wasn’t the case, but it absolutely could have been.

This situation is just an example of the state that our world is in right now. You really never know who the next group of innocent victims are going to be, especially with all of the recent events occurring.

Recently, there was also a bomb threat for the metro. It was on a day of a very important soccer game in Madrid, so it was hardly a surprise that there were threats of terror. I took the situation very seriously, and walked home (even though the walk was almost an hour and the metro ride would have been 15 minutes). I think that that’s all you really can do in order to protect yourself. Because the reality is, no one ever knows when they’re going to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

This reality is extremely scary. While it may not affect any specific business directly, it effects everyone in a lot of ways. The future can be very uncertain and any business can be affected by tragedies. It is especially relevant while living in Europe due to the increased presence of small acts of terror. All that any person or company can do is be prepared to react to the uncertainty that is the present.