500 Words a Week - Stop Changing Lanes
You’re stuck in traffic. The world has stopped in your lane, no movement and no chance of change soon. The lane next to you seems to be cruising. You indicate and pull into the moving lane. You feel relief as you begin to move forward, and suddenly, your lane stops. Your original lane begins to move, and cars that were once behind you are flying forward. Frustration builds, you move back into your original lane, only for the exact same thing to happen all over again.
At times this is how we can feel within our own pursuits. Stuck behind an endless lane of traffic that doesn’t seem to be moving anywhere. People that were behind us at one point in time are flying by in the lane beside us. We don’t know whether to stay within our lane and keep inching forward or change into a lane that seems like it’s moving.
The constant lane changing and comparing our lane to those beside us is only making our journey longer, more frustrating and less enjoyable. At times, we need to accept that we are stuck in traffic and just wait for the congested time to pass. The important thing is that we are still in our lane with the goal of moving forward. We are committed to the journey and aren’t constantly looking over our shoulders. We aren’t letting those who are passing us by in the other lane dishearten us. Although we might be stuck, we know we won’t be stuck forever.
Consistency and modesty are vastly undervalued traits in the current world we live where we deem our value by likes, followers and shares. Where we feel we must always be onto the newest thing to keep up with the other lanes. However, I think of the people I look up to who I’ve been lucky enough to associate with, these are values that they embody. It’s also not just consistency with regards to one’s work ability, but to one’s attitude/ approach. No one wants to work with someone who they aren’t sure what version they will get each-day.
Instagram, twitter and LinkedIn can be wonderful tools to gather new ideas and connect. However, they can also be the very thing that makes us feel like we are stuck in traffic while everyone passes us by. It’s helpful to remember that people generally only post when they are cruising, very rarely does anyone post about how they are stuck in traffic also.
