Switching Lanes

An old cocktail story tells of a shabbily dressed man walking about a littered path.  He stops many times to pick up  discarded paper along the way.  Each time, onlookers hear the man say, "No, that's not it."

And having said so, he would toss the pieces of paper back to the ground before continuing his search. 

Finally realizing that the man is probably homeless, a kind soul walks  up to him, takes a $20 dollar bill from his wallet, and gives it to the man. 

The shabbily dressed one examines it, smells it, and then holds the money up to the sunlight.  Certain now of what he has in his hand, with great speed the man runs across the street to a fast food place shouting, "That's it! That's it!  That's it!"  

Like the man in this vignette, searching people everywhere often have to discern what is of value to us and what is not.  Whether we outgrow a familiar connection or whether  the connection distances itself from us, we arrive at a point of letting go of certain aspects of our lives  in order to move forward.   That is when it's time to switch lanes.

I met my friend Sally at a businesswoman's breakfast about ten years ago.  Whenever Sally enters a room, her demeanor, her carriage when she moves, and her commanding voice makes you aware of her presence.  One Saturday after taking  in a stage matinée together, Sally surprises me with a startling  confession. 

The  lead character in the production we had just seen  possessed a penchant  for sabotaging  her every potential  friendship.  Her weapon of choice?  A mean spirited jealousy  that could only be   rivaled by Cain's  slaying  of  Abel.  By the play's end, I look Sally's way and discover her close to tears. 

 She examines her tote for a tissue. "I used to be just like Madge."

We stop for a late lunch at a nearby bistro where she reveals her own past indiscretions  at the hand of  an abiding jealousy. A jealousy which,  after raising its ugly head, consistently  left  her conflicted and guilty.

 "I used to feel threatened by anyone I imagined had more of anything than I possessed. It didn't matter, money, clothes or even a winning personality, my envy would rage out of control."

 I listen as friends do while she describes having punctured  a co-worker's tire simply because the co-worker had a knock-out figure.   Not our Sally, I think to myself.

She blows  her nose. "The woman didn't even work in the same department with me."

It was unbelievable that anyone would think of acting out such viciousness, much less our Sally.

"I undertook a year of therapy to get the help I needed to overcome this wrong side of myself," she says finally.  "Still go to group  when I need it."

 That night I lay in bed thinking of my own past improprieties. And like Sally, try as I might, ridding myself of their stronghold took both courage and persistence.  The negative self rarely asks  permission to rule in one's life.  Unchecked, it displaces the true self by force.   Reversal of the syndrome almost always begin with a strong acceptance that the wrongs we commit are not in spirit with whom we know our  true selves to be.  I fell asleep realizing that in the throes of such turmoil in life, that is when it's time to switch lanes.

A month later at my company's picnic , Mark  tells me that his  reversal and turning point  came when his wife left him.  With Jill's departure, Mark's  assumption that his after work drinking hurt no one but himself slapped him flat in the face.

 "I  used to applaud myself that after work I went straight home to dinner. " he tells me. "Like any good husband I stopped hanging out at bars as soon as I married Jill.  Sure, I would put down a couple of cans here, a forty-ounce there.  What man didn't? It relieves the stress."

Jill offers me lemonade and her version of those days takes on a different view.

"The dinners he came home to were delayed , spoiled or forgotten altogether.  I started to eat alone before he arrived just to be able to eat in peace."

I say, "I don't understand." 

"Mark is an angry drunk," Jill explains.  ""The stresses that made Mark angry at work , when he got  his buzz on, he used the least little things to take that anger out on me."

After five years of verbal abuse, Jill threw up her hands and went home to her parents. 

Mark confesses that at first he never gave it a  thought that she might not come back to him.   "A week passes and Jill serves me with  an ultimatum.  Either I do something about the drinking and the anger, or she's gone."

As Sally did after her car incident, Mark acknowledged  the negative truth about himself.  One, he faced his anger. Second, Mark dropped the denial that drinking beer made him any less of an alcoholic than the guy next door who plastered himself to sleep  each night belting down martinis. And foremost,  his beer guzzling hurt not just himself,  but  Jill as well.  Three years sober and counting, he displays  a necklace of  medallions  tucked inside his shirt.   Each medallion represented a year of leaving the booze behind so that he and Jill could start the marriage they wanted.  No one had to tell him that it was time to switch lanes.

Jenjoo, a neighbor, deals with a different sort of stronghold.  Jenjoo is perfect in just about every way, except one.  Jenjoo is a people pleaser.  She says no to no one.  She hounds other's approval at the expense of her own  time.  Her behavior is aberrant exclusively to Jenjoo.  A few weeks ago, she took hold of herself vowing to reverse her circumstances.

 This morning she called me up to explain. "My problem is harder to recognize. You go  out of your way to help others so you have no guilt.  You don't see how it begins to slowly drain you."

 I think, well said.   The awareness necessary to bring about change.  It's time to switch lanes. 

Sally's therapy to put in check  jealous thinking, Mark's choice of his marriage over his drinking,  and Jenjoo's decision to embrace her own spirit with the same respect with which she honors her friends and family; all point to a singular principle.  There comes a time for all of us to  just switch lanes.

The  primary ecological system with which we  most need concern ourselves, is humankind's humanity toward one another.  If we seek  this first, all other environmental needs, as an outflow, will be addressed.   To do otherwise, subjects us to roam the landscape like the shabbily dressed man on the littered path.      Picking up much while gaining little of value. And declaring to those within hearing distance, "No, that's not it." 

 Time to switch lanes.