As I made my way across the southwestern deserts this morning, an interesting journey emerged. It started when I passed a "Speed Limit 35" regulatory sign just outside of Prescott, and I began to wonder why I can pass a speed limit sign without even blinking, but I would seriously scruff if I heard a live person yelling at me, "You can't drive faster than 35 on this part of the road!" as I drove by.
Same information...lol...totally different meaning.
We all have them. Those people in our lives who plant their regulatory signs across the terrain of our personal world....the signs that start with, "You should..." or "You need to..." for the endless things that they think we should be doing with what are, in fact, our personal lives.
There are other signs, as well...the "cautionary" signs that alert us to some potential or impending danger just around the corner. This is the "kinder, gentler" form of regulatory sign that nudges, rather than mandates. These people would politely say, "Might I suggest that you drive only 25 around this curve?" as I drove past.
Of course, the truth is that even though the cautionary signs suggest, and the regulatory signs mandate certain driving behavior, I am still free to make my own choices, because I am the license holding driver of my vehicle. So, if I am willing to accept the risks and consequences of not following these directives, then I am free to make my own decisions.
Why do we forget this fact...that we are the drivers of our own lives...when the regulatory signs are planted in our personal terrain by other people?
I was thinking long and hard about this truth...lol. Why is it that when I come across one of these "You should..." or "You need to..." signs planted in my personal terrain I get angry and scruff...sometimes only internally, but sometimes confrontationally? When the truth of the matter is that these human planted regulatory signs have absolutely no merit in my world; yet I give them power as if they do.
The fact is that I could simply drive right past them...ignore them, but I don't. Or, I could turn to the maintenance crew on 24-hour standby in my mind and simply ask them to remove the illegally planted sign...lol...but I don't do that, either. I read them over and over again, stewing over the presence of a sign intended to regulate me and my personal choices.
This is also my choice, of course, as no one else is responsible for making me stew over signs in my world that I don't like or want....and don't ever have to listen to, anyway!
But even harder for me to drive past or ignore are the seemingly "neutral" signs that just tell people what some place is called. I can be driving quite happily around my my home town of "Doing the Best I Can." Then, wham! Someone plants a sign in front of mine that reads, "Never Quite Good Enoughville" and I'm in the fetal position sucking on a Dove Bar trying to figure out what I actually would do for a Klondike!
I also began to laugh about how wonderful it would be if there were positive signs that supported and encouraged us as we drove. Imagine driving around a curve to read a sign that said, "Great job taking this curve!" It's funny to think about this silly nonsensical idea, but I did wonder if there were signs of positive encouragement that I was missing...so I began to look for them.
It took a long time before I could find anything positive or encouraging. I started reframing the regulatory signs so that they would say, "You can drive as fast as 35 along this stretch of the road." But there was always a big fat qualifyer dangling that would cynically whisper, "But not any faster!"
Finding a stand alone sign of positive encouragement was proving to be a challenge! The roads would tell me, "You can drive here." But the desert would follow up with, "But not here." The first fully positive sign was the dashed line on the road telling me I was free to pass...but then the cautionary signs all chimed in with their refrain, "As long as it's safe, of course!"
But then I found hope...Hope, Arizona, that is. And, then I saw the "A OK Corral" and thought I was on a roll...lol. However, Hope, Arizona is but a speck of road through the desert, so it wasn't long before I was beyond hope, once again. There was even a sign that informed me of this fact...it read, "Your Beyond Hope Now" as I drove out of town. And, yes, that is how it was spelled...lol...so, I guess I wasn't the only one beyond hope...lol.
I found "Lots for sale," but it wasn't clear if they were selling parcels of land or just lots of stuff. I passed the 3 Dreamers RV Park, and wondered if it were full already. And I drove through a long stretch of road designated as a "blowing dust area," but I guess only dust was allowed to be blown, because I looked long and hard for the "blowing smoke up someone's ass area," but didn't come across one...lol.
But my personal favorite sign of positive encouragement was the "Passmore Gas Company" sign just past Hope, and I didn't think it could get any more positive or encouraging than that...lol. But then I passed the State Prison sign in California with the cautionary sign beneath it that read, "Do not pick up hitchhikers." Yeah, like I had to be told that one...lol.
So that was my drive this morning. Clearly, I kept myself quite entertained as I drove across the southwestern deserts. And I'm very much looking forward to my drive back to "Doing the Best I Can" as soon as these appointments are done!