Sunday, October 01, 2006

Habits Are Hard To Break

Teach a youth about the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it. Proverbs 22:6

I stopped by to see my parents this week. We were driving to Glorieta, New Mexico and stayed with Mom and Dad for the night. They still live in the house we lived in when I was learning to drive. The neighborhood has changed quite a bit though. When I was first driving, the street we lived on was filled on both sides by houses with young families with children. It was a rather narrow street and made a turn that decreased visibility. Even today you have to be really careful and alert when driving down Parkland drive.

There was another way to get to our house. Instead of turning on Parkland you continued straight on Heiland until you came to Iris. Then you turned on Iris to Parkland and came out right at our house. There weren’t as many houses on those two streets. Dad told us teenagers we were always to take that route to the house. He didn’t want to see us driving down Parkland.

Today houses line both routes. There is no appreciable difference between route one and route two. I am 57 years old. I can drive down any road I want to. But I still feel just a little guilty, a little rebellious, if I turn on Parkland and take the forbidden route to the house.

Out where the highways come together there is a stop light. You come down the road from town, reach the highway intersection and there is a traffic signal. When I was growing up and learning to drive, there was only a stop sign. You came to the highway, looked both ways, and if it was clear, you entered the highway.

The traffic signal has been there for at least 30 years. Just the other day I came down the road to the highway, stopped, looked both ways and ran a red light. It was totally unintentional. It was reverting to the days of my youth, reacting to what I had been taught 43 years ago.

We are creatures of habit. We should make an extra effort to see that our habits are good ones.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I've been in multiple cars that have run that red light over the years, including both your parents. And i did it a few times in Moriarty, and i'm not even sure i drove when it was still a 4-way stop....