Ticket to Ride

One day last week in class, in an attempt to illustrate our attitudes toward various illegal activities, our professor asked if anyone in the class ALWAYS kept below the speed limit.  Sheepishly, I raised my hand - the lone non-speeder of my class.  The situation felt so awkward that I actually mumbled an apology to everyone for my law-abiding geekiness "Yeah, I know... sorry."  However, the conversations that have come from that moment in class have set me to thinking again about where this practice of mine originated.  After all, I haven't always been mindful of limits: my first car was a '79 Camaro, and I have lots of great stories about weaseling my way out of tickets (or not).

When Kristin and I first married, we lived in a very rural part of southern Utah, where we had two creek-crossings on the way home.  We often drove an old Jeep Wrangler that was just a notch above functional, and it didn't have a lot of motivation hidden under the gas pedal - it got us where we needed to go, but not fast!  In our many goings and comings (we both had three jobs), we rarely made it all the way up to the speed limit on the highway, and we had no choice but to be comfortable with that.  When people became stuck behind us, I would simply shrug my shoulders and look for a way to help get them past me.  We made plans that gave us ample time to get to and from home - we often had time to spare on either end - and we enjoyed leisurely conversations on the road.

After leaving Utah and moving into a more urban setting, we began to reflect on the changes this season of slowness had brought, and we decided to try to keep them alive.  I see now, looking back, that I began a process way back there that is still coming to fruition.  Here in America, we seem to spend most of our lives in a hurry, and we see limits as getting in the way of our productivity.  We ask "How much faster can I get away with driving?, How much sleep can I do without and still function?, How much fast food can I eat and still be healthy?, etc. etc."  Where exactly are we going in such a hurry?  If life is meant to be lived to the fullest in each moment, what does it serve me to cut corners in this moment in order to hurry to the next?  Why am I always trying to cram more into a life that is already overwhelming?

Good questions, all, and I'm still nowhere close to answering them.  But...  When I get on the road now, I see the posted speed limit as an outer extreme rather than a tight restraint: I am on the road to be driving - not to be getting to the next event.  The people in front of me aren't in my way, they are my fellow travelers.  This perspective serves well to inform the rest of my life, and I still sometimes enjoy counting how many cars pass me by on a given stretch of road...