Changing Lanes

In my previous article, Timing Is NOT Everything (July 2010), I painted an illustration of a traffic scene of the merging car coming off the exit ramp into your lane. Here is a snippet:

Have you ever been driving on the highway, coming up to an exit and there is traffic exiting on the highway? The vehicles merging into traffic should wait until they have enough space to merge; but instead they just drive off the exit, into your line of sight expecting you to move over into the next lane. It forces you to pump the brakes and LET them in...

Sometimes you have to make people notice you, let them see how serious you are and force them to LET you ‘get in where you fit in’....

In this analogy you were to see yourself as the merging car boldly making your transition into the right lane fulfilling your purpose. Now take that same scene and reverse the roles. Imagine you’re the driver in the lane of traffic. You’re about to yield to the car merging into your path. Remember how frustrated it was when the vehicle forced its way into your path and caused you to shift lanes? Don’t see that maneuver as a bad thing. Welcome the divine interruption! Sometimes you need a little jolting. You may need something to happen to make you mad enough to move. You can become complacent at the place you are in, not realizing while you are wallowing in contentment, you’ll soon be fuming feelings of resentment.

As you know all slow traffic should keep to the right. If you’re like me, you don’t like your speed broken or want to pump your brakes once you have momentum flowing. This merging vehicle is now prompting you or I to move over toward the left lane, where faster moving traffic is traveling. In reality, the left lane was designed for passing other vehicles while in route to your destination, not for coasting. The same goes for you as you make this journey to do what you desire to do.

Sometimes we get bogged down with distractions and multitasking of work, taking care of kids, running a business or two, church activity, mentoring, and very little “me” time until we lose sight of where we are on the road and how long its taking us to reach our destination. This is not to say you are failing if you fall behind or haven’t reached your goal by a certain time. I’m merely saying if we weren’t interrupted or “cut off” sometimes we would never move otherwise. Timing has nothing to do with it, things happen the way they are suppose to. It is our sensitivity to the stimulation around us that determine the outcomes of our life. (Choices) We choose to do, not to do, to love, not to love, to reject love, to help, not to help, to encourage, to ignore things and people around us. Your reaction to your stimulus can allow you to ride on cruise control in the slow lane getting uptight because someone just got in front of you. Or you it could push you over to the fast lane so you can pass by all the distractions and enjoy the ride! Its up to you.

Everyone who got where he is had to begin where he was ~ Pope John Paul II

So, CHANGE LANES!!

Pamela D. Ballard