sacramento freeways show me the benefit of staying the course

Today’s spiritual lesson learned from driving California’s freeways answered a few questions for me:

why might I want to stay the course rather than rashly act until really shown that its time to make a change?

how many times must I be shown that I am guided and protected by a higher power before I believe it? 

why is it so hard sometimes to stay in my lane?

A couple of years ago, Sacramento’s highway 50 (aka business 80) just west of highway 99 changed the lines on several lanes from dotted to solid so that you are strongly dissuaded from changing lanes until the lines go back to dotted. The exit for our home (10th street, if you care) occurs right after the lines are dotted again.  And that exit comes right on the heels of the 16th street exit, which happens to be an “exit only” lane.

In the time since they rejiggered these lanes, I must have driven over the interchange 2-5 times a week, so hundreds of times (what social scientists might call “statistically significant data”). The direction from which I generally come forces me into a middle lane of the freeway. To my right is a solid line separating me from another lane. To the right of that lane is the exit only lane onto 16th street. Every time I have driven this exchange, I find that once I pass the 16th street exit, I have just enough time (about 2-3 seconds) and enough space in traffic to make it from that lane into the next lane (which has by that time become the far right) and onto the off ramp to 10th street.

Nonetheless, every single time I make this drive (including just this morning), there’s a point where I feel a little bit convinced that today it will be different. It always looks different. During the solid line part, there really IS too much traffic to get over if I tried. Nonetheless it always occurs to me to defy the lines, defy the law even (since it’s probably illegal to change lanes right there) and to get over before the lines turn to dashes. Today, it will seem, unlike the two other times this week and the hundreds of times i’ve made this drive before, there will be too much traffic, or I will be going too fast, or something will be different and I will not have time to get over to exit.

When this happens, I smile to myself, and I think, “it’s okay, the worst case scenario is not that bad, breathe” and I wait for the dotted lines. Invariably, as in this morning, when the dots come, the traffic opens up and I can easily get over to exit.

What spiritual lessons do you draw from this story? I draw a few today, and I’m open to hear more:

1. if I feel hemmed in or stuck, there’s probably a reason. It’s probably not time to change lanes yet.
2. When it is time to make a different move, it will be clear and it will be easy.
3. I can trust that the universe (in this case, showing up as a department of transportation highway project) is conspiring to shower me with blessings;  apparent constraints can actually help me navigate my way safely through life.
4. and a reminder that I am always at choice. If I want to break the lines and fight traffic, I’m welcome to do so, but I risk injury.