Inspiration Column

Inspiration! Moving On

I was driving on a familiar route. For the last few weeks, traffic from the outside lane had been directed to merge with the inside lane due to roadworks. The tailback was always depressingly long and slow until we reached the distant traffic lights.

That morning, my heart sank. The tailback on the inside lane started really far back. Obediently, I joined the end of the queue as we’d been conditioned to do by the roadworks sign. A car passed me on the outside lane. Then a second car whizzed by. I frowned at their unsportsmanlike behaviour. And then, as the long, empty outside lane stared back at my gaze, I questioned my judgement. Was it really unsportsmanlike? Who were they hurting?

I couldn’t see them any more. Suddenly, I realized I couldn’t recall having seen the roadworks sign either.

In an instant, I had joined them, passing all the cars to my left that I would have been stuck behind for at least ten minutes. Another car followed me. The lane closure sign finally appeared shortly before the roundabout, and at that point, we integrated painlessly with the rest of the traffic. Had everyone stayed on the inside lane, leaving a mile of outside lane empty, the congestion would needlessly have been worse. And I would definitely have regretted doing what I thought was ‘the right thing to do’.

We were all just driving on old programming that said ‘Don’t go there’. We follow old programming all the time, from our earliest childhood messages of “It’s rude to ask” or “Do as you’re told”, to more subtle, grown-up cues of “Who do you think you are?” or “Don’t rock the boat”. If we don’t re-examine those messages at some point, we’ll be unaware that the reasons for having being told them might no longer be valid, and we’ll continue to go along with them. They may not have been relevant to our world or life for decades. But they’re still holding us back.

It’s not always as easy as just not doing this or that one thing, because frequently, we build beliefs and attitudes around those early rules until our whole existence is tangled up with them. Then we’re trapped in an intricate web of rules, restrictions and perspectives not of our own choosing. We have to peel them back, untangle the web, hold them carefully and with respect so that we don’t demolish our whole way of life just for the sake of changing one thing.

So my challenge is, look at your life. And ask yourself,

“Where am I following rules that no longer serve me? And what could I be doing instead?”

Keep moving,

Sonia Duggan

CPCC PCC CPQC

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