Some of the important things that I know about doing life, and doing therapy, I learned from driving cars and trucks:
SEAT BELTS. (Spoiler Alert to the newer folks on the tour bus: vehicles in the last century did not come equipped with seat belts). Every car I have owned has had seat belts because I installed them. My brother, our father and I drilled holes in the floor and bolted belts into all of our cars, post manufacture. The seat belts we used were scavenged from racecars and airplanes. Perhaps the law requiring the wearing of seat belts should apply to life as well as to moving vehicles. Especially when we are "zooming around", distracted by the busy-ness of life or what we think is at the time, more important than our own safety (or the safety of the kids in the car with us; the "parental arm-bar" across a child's chest isn't very effective). We, and others, don't always obey "the rules of the road". Healthy boundaries and clear values/goals are the seat belts of life. Rarely do we have the time to put them on just before we really need them. Health and a centered awareness would have us wearing them all the time.
MIRRORS. Back in the good old, prehistoric days when we were navigating driving circles around the Hot Shoppes Drive-in, our dinosaurs came equipped with only one mirror, mounted on the center, inside of the front windshield. After installing seat belts, we screwed on two fender mirrors to increase the field of vision along side and behind the car. Of course, these had to be "bullet" mirrors because they looked so cool. Being an Army Brat, I was taught to drive with a swivel-head, always on a circle checking each of the mirrors in order. Look forward most of the time. Watch far away, but pay special attention to the braking distance directly in from of the car. Every few seconds I was to circle from the left fender mirror to the center rear-view mirror, then to the right fender, then back to the road in front. Repeat. This circle checking works in life too. Some people go through life looking only in their rear-view mirror. This I call an "historical" personality type. They live and breathe only in the past. Other people spend most to their time staring hundreds of yards ahead of where they are. The "futurists". A third group, "the Whirling Dervishes", spin round the circle so fast that they make themselves anxious and others dizzy. Rapidly shifting from one view to the nexttothenexttothenext they spin out of the control that they are ultimately seeking, unable to focus on a single image or issue. All three of these types, miss what is happening in front of them. Life is that which is right in front of us. We are to be aware of what is behind, ahead and to the side, yet focus in front. In front, the present is the only place in which we can act. Way too many folks live in the past or the future, missing the gift of the present.
LIGHTS. If you drive too fast for the road conditions, you place yourself and others in danger. When it is dark, or rainy or snowy, turn on your lights and be full-of-care. (Maryland State law states that if your windshield wipers are on, then your lights must be also.) And then, don't over-drive your lights. I learned from my cars that my driving speed needed to be adjusted to the prevailing conditions. Driving faster than the braking distance/time that my lights illuminated meant I would have limited responses to dangers in the road ahead. There is a light in our life that can help us to see more clearly when things are falling from the sky, being thrown up from the road or when we find ourselves in a deep fog. Like headlights, our guiding light brings us through dangerous times. Pay attention to maintenance (the content of articles to come). Keep the lenses and bulbs clean and in good working condition. High beams are very useful at times, know when and when not. Make sure the wiring harness is not frayed and that the power source is charged and available.
BRAKES AND ACCELERATOR. Brakes are essential safety equipment and ought to be used when appropriate. The mistake most people make is in assuming that all emergency situations call for stomping on the brakes as fast and hard as possible. If you watch professional racecar drivers, you will see that when an accident occurs ahead of them, they do not do the "Beltway Stomp" with all the brake lights popping on at once. Professional drivers know that a car is the most maneuverable when it is under power, when it is accelerating. Crises in life rarely call for us to stop. Most of the time we are the safest when we keep going.
GENERAL MOTORS. My maternal grandparents, my mother, and my father all worked for General Motors in Detroit/Pontiac. My mother and her brother had to be able to dismantle and reassemble a car in working order before they were allowed to drive. While not necessarily conceived in the back seat of a Chevrolet, my parents did meet and began dating at work. During WWII, with Dad in the service, his father-in-law was on the design team that created the transmission allowing the Army's amphibious Duck [DUKW] to shift from water to dry land. Family Rule: be flexible, plan, adapt and overcome; drive every car/truck/piece of machinery possible for you never know when that experience might be useful; expand your life experiences. Tactical to Practical: learned growing up "out of country" to have real fog lamps on cars and that parking lights are designed to be used when the car is parked alongside a road.
BE ALERT. We can always use more "lerts". Many drivers operate their cars while in a stupor (current AAA estimates put the percentage of impaired drivers, any time day or night, at 50%). Life is best experienced and served when awake and aware. What a difference it would make if on the roads of our lives, every driver was awake, aware, alert, clean and sober. Be full of care out there, buckle up and enjoy the ride.
Discussions, comments, disagreements, snide remarks and silly stories are invited and welcome.