What Does a Yellow Light Mean?
What Does a Yellow Light Mean?
One of my all time favorite sitcoms was "Taxi" and one of the
funniest skits I remember is when Jim Ignatosky went to get his
driver's license renewed. If you remember Jim was the taxi
driver with the hashish-fried brain. While taking the written
portion of his test he became perplexed with the question, "What
does a yellow light mean?" He turns to fellow cabbie Bobby
Wheeler and whispers, "what does a yellow light mean?" Bobby
whispers back, "Slow Down" and Jim in his infinite wisdom
whispers back only much slower, "What does a yellow light mean?"
Bobby, in frustration whispers back, "Slow Down!" Jim once again
only much slower whispers, "What does a yellow light mean?" I
believe you get the point. Hopefully you can see that depending
on who you are or how you observe a circumstance or event a
different set of interpretations can be derived from it.
Yellow lights can also be a metaphor for our lives.
Interestingly, when we approach an intersection while driving
our car and the light is green we, as would be expected,
continue to move through the intersection. The transparency of
our thoughts and actions continue unnoticed, our reflective
awareness is elsewhere. In other words we don't have to think
about what we are doing we just continue on our way. If the
light is red we really don't give it much thought either. We
apply the brakes and come to a stop all while talking on the
cell phone, drinking our coffee, and checking ourselves out in
the rearview mirror. There is literally no break in our
transparency or habits. We have developed these habits or
transparencies as a driver and multi-tasker from our many
cultural and social experiences individually and collectively.
However, when we approach the intersection and the light turns
yellow we are forced to make a decision. Do we continue on or
come to a stop. There is a break in our transparency and in this
case we don't have a lot of time to decide so we react. Our
reaction can be the result of what we are experiencing at the
moment. If we are late for work we will probably make a
different decision than we would if we were witness to an
accident just the day before. It could also be the result of a
long history of going through yellow lights without incident or
the fact that when we were taught to drive our teacher told us
to always stop for yellow. After we react our thought processes
are broken from the transparency we were previously engaged. We
may rationalize our decision to ourselves or say a little prayer
if run the yellow and the light turns red before we are through
the intersection. Our actions can become altered as well. We may
be checking our mirrors to see if a police car observed our
decision or take a few deep breaths because of the tension the
moment created for us.
Life is very much like this yellow light. We are often faced
with life transitions and although we may not have to react
quite as quick we are often influenced by recent events.
Moreover, from the moment we were born we have been accumulating
layers of data, which we use to create habits and transparencies
in our lives. When we reach an intersection in life, such as a
change, transition, or crisis these historical discourses as
well as our moods and emotions, and our physical presence, both
biological and postural, influence our decisions.
As long as we our comfortable living in the drift or habits of
our life and we are thrown no curve balls then life is good.
However, what happens when we get tired of our transparency or
we want to break free to follow our desires? Perhaps we receive
some bad news like the loss of a loved one or for that matter we
receive some good news like a promotion at work but we must move
to another city. Well the fact is our discourses, moods, habits,
old tapes, programming, and a host of other roadblocks collide
with our desires to either break free or remain in our
transparency.
The key is to first understand that this is normal and second we
do not have to be slaves to our reactions. By discovering and
developing our life's purpose and proactively working on our
language, moods and emotions, and physical presence we can
create and expand our future possibilities. We grow through
learning. The answer lies in our desire to learn. By learning I
do not mean knowing things or gaining more information, learning
is about forming new interpretations and entering into new
conversations in order to see and take different actions in your
life. Ask yourself the question, "What does a yellow light
mean?" If you are tired of the same old answer give me a call,
let's have a conversation!
Robert
robert@intersectio
nscoaching.com