What Lane Are You Living In?

I live in the Atlanta area and I am sure that most of you have heard of our traffic nightmares and the different roads here. We have a few highways that we joke about referring to “speed limits” or the lack thereof. I will explain how one of them are and that highway is 400. You have several lanes including the shoulder during rush hour. Rush hour is all day of course and not one span of hours in particular. Anyhow I digress. The far left lane is the “Bat Out Of Hell Super Speeder” lane as I like to call it. I am sure there is a speed limit but if you do it or anything that is not at least 20 over, you will get a driver in your back-end. This person is more than likely to develop extreme road rage and throw finger signs etc. at you if you fail to get out of the way. The lane next to it is treated as I want to speed but I don’t really want a “super speeder” ticket if caught so I will attempt to play it safer. The next lane is kind of the same and the far right is well, for the folks that are nervous about having to drive with the rest of the crazy’s.

Now sometimes those folks will mosey over into one of the other three lanes and again immediately spark rage in those that are just trying to get to where they have to be! Most of the time they will correct themselves but in the rare instance they will hang out in what they believe should be the slow lane. This of course causes blood pressures to rise and erratic behavior behind them. I have seen people get within inches of a backside of a car and hold true until they have proven their point.

So where am I getting at with all of this?

Pre-COVID I believe a lot of us lived our lives in the “super speeder” lane. We were going so fast that we didn’t care who was in our way and how we acted to get to where we were going. This was evident in not only our relationship’s but our health. Then COVID happened and we were all forced to hang out in the “slow lane”. We had to sit back and take our time. Rebuild relationships, get our households in order and get our health on track. (this was for me of course)

This happened in my own household and it was much simpler times. While it was difficult, it made me take pause and really reflect on life and the lane I was driving life in.

Now that I am back in the office full time and life is getting back to “normal” here, I am still practicing the pause. Do I really need to be in the “super speeder” lane to get to where I am going? Can I take a few minutes to slow down and enjoy the journey not just getting to the destination? The answer is almost always, yes. Don’t get me wrong I am still crazy busy but by choosing to live life in the slow lane more often, I am keeping the integrity of the relationships I have built and my health in check.

So which lane are you living in?