Live & Let Live

While taking a trip this weekend, a minor incident occurred which made me think.

We were driving down a road and there was a sudden traffic jam due to a very slow moving vehicle. This was in the country heading into the mountains, so there was not a lot of traffic otherwise. The slow moving vehicle should have had the courtesy to pull over and let others pass, but they didn't.

We wondered why the other cars did not simply pass the slow moving vehicle, an SUV pulling a trailer, but since no one else seemed to be interested in moving ahead, we started to go around to pass.

Suddenly, another SUV pulled out, but he did not move ahead, he just pulled out enough to block us. In other words, he did not want to go, but for some reason, he objected to us going. How could it have benefited him to block our progress?

I have had similar experiences on highways or roads before, and no doubt you have too, where someone else simply goes just fast enough, or just pulls into your way far enough so that you cannot move ahead.

Think about that metaphor in life. How many times do people simply block your way, rather than simply staying where they are or moving over and allowing you to pass? What do they gain by this?

We can move toward our goals more easily when we have others around us who share our goals. We may not always achieve our goals, but at least we need to make that journey ourselves and whether we have great success or not, we can make our own discoveries and experiences.

Not everyone will agree with our goals, but at least we should be able to expect that people we don't even know will stay out of our way and let us choose freely.

This is the principle of live and let live.