Cars And People

I’ve recently had an experience with traffic, specifically two traffic jams, and it got me to thinking. At first, I was completely and utterly frustrated and annoyed. I have been away from the area for some time and had not as of then been in the midst of literal stop and go traffic on an Idaho Interstate. It affected me so much that I proceeded to write a letter to the editor in our local newspaper. I like to record my thoughts in some record or another. Well, it was published, and the title was City of Cars, Not Trees.

But after processing my thoughts on this matter I have come to some enlightening conclusions and not just that there are too many cars. And albeit there are actually too many cars the problem is much bigger and deeper that just that. You see cars aren’t people. They don’t think, they don’t feel, they don’t make decisions, people do that. As I sat in traffic frustrated it donned on me that I too was part of the traffic, I too was contributing to the jam, I too was being and acting like the thing that I was bemoaning.

The difference is I acted. I wrote a letter and I will do everything in my power not to be part of that traffic again. The cog on the wheel goes round and round, round and round, round and round. Well, I pulled the damn cog out and now it can do and be whatever it chooses. You may say, “well it’s still a cog”. And I say to that, as long as it’s in the wheel it will always be a cog but take it out and it has the option if you will to be something different, to do something different.

Sometimes I say dare to be different. I always say be aware and make your own choice. We are not stuck in the traffic jam of life unless we are unaware and continue to do the same thing over and over again. How one chooses to open their eyes, how one chooses to make different choices rather than just doing what you always do can set a person free. And once your free then you realize there are more roads to journey and adventure on other than just the traffic jam full of cars.