How not to get speeding tickets or just love your life

A few years ago I got my one and only traffic ticket and went to court to contest it.  Sitting there for two hours moving up the line one chair at a time, I started chatting with a 30-something woman next to me who seemed to be having an anxiety attack. Let’s call her Jill. It turned out this was Jill’s 7th speeding ticket in 2 years and she was worried she would lose her driver’s license. The judge had already forgiven a few of her tickets but she was sure this was the end. I asked the obvious question:

– Why do you speed then?

~ Because I’m terrified I’ll be late to work?

– Why don’t you set your alarm 15 minutes earlier?

~ It’s no good. I just hit the snooze button.

– Maybe you could go to bed earlier?

~ It’s not that. I just don’t want to get up. I don’t even have time to put make up on. I do it while driving.

– What?! Why risk a speeding ticket and worse, an accident where you injure yourself, or worse, injure someone else?

~ (small voice) Because I don’t want to go to work. (/small voice)

Then tears.

 

 

How about you?

 

• Is your life not going that well?

You hate your job. You hit snooze 5 times, like Jill, before you can force yourself to get up and get ready for work. You’re habitually late maybe because the person in the next cubicle drives you crazy with incessant chatting on phone, chewing gum, invading your space or having you do his work. Plus your boss is an inconsiderate, arrogant fool.

Or maybe your social life sucks. You don’t like anyone around you. You haven’t gone on a date in ages, or you’re constantly fighting with your spouse, boyfriend, girlfriend; even your cat hates being around you which actually is normal for cats maybe.

• Or maybe life is going well for you.

You have a pretty good job, sometimes it gets boring and sometimes it gets too overwhelming, but in general, it goes at a steady pace. Your co-workers are nice, your boss is nice, you have a Christmas party and Secret Santa and an annual BYOB picnic.

Your social life is fine too. You have a group of friends you have fun with, you have a pretty pleasant family, and you even have a nice boyfriend. All is well.

But, every now and then, you get a sense, a small voice whispering to you perhaps, that something is just not right, not enough. Something’s missing or a lot is missing. You’re not excited about your life as much as you’d like to be.

• Or your life is just perfect in every way possible.

If you belong in this last group, what are you doing here? Stop reading this right now and go enjoy your life!

 

But if you see yourself in the first or second group, or some variation of those, you might want to read ahead.

How do you figure out what’s missing?

What would make an acceptable life a good life and a good life an even better life?
What would make a bad thing a little better and then a little more better until it’s a lot better.

I think there are several steps to it. In later blogs I will take each one of these steps and elaborate on them, but for now, a brief description of them will suffice, since I’m over my imaginary word count.

 

• 1. Get to know who you are.

Not you, Jill, mother, daughter, wife, girlfriend, secretary, accountant, nurse, etc… But You who is none of those, You who lives in your body. The You whose voice you hear in your heart sometimes. That You. And if you haven’t met her yet, I can help introduce you to her. Dr. Martha Beck calls this You, your essential self while Dr. Russ Harris calls her the observer.

 

• 2. Accept you in your life in the present moment.

Whatever it is. This is where you are. It doesn’t matter where you could have been, where you should have been, what you lost, what you gave up what was taken away. This is where you are NOW. Accept it as it is (don’t panic… just for now)

 

• 3. Do the unthinkable! Love yourself as you are right now.

Your thighs are too big? Your chin is too weak, you get easily angry, you don’t speak up when you feel you should… whatever it is you see as wrong with yourself, love her. Love you unconditionally.

 

• 4. Once you reach this point, trust yourself.

Trust yourself because you know what’s best for you more than anyone else. More than your mom, your girlfriends, your boyfriend, your boss, and your life coach! This will take some time but once you learn to be in touch with that You, not just the other you, it will get easier.

 

• 5. Have faith in yourself that you will be able to deal with any situation.

You’ll be able to change what you’d like to change, go after what you’d like to go after.

YOU will empower you.

 

If you do this, I don’t think you will ever get 7 speeding tickets going to work because you never wanted to go to work in the first place.

 

I don’t know what happened to Jill. I wish I kept in touch. I was not a trained life coach then, and didn’t pursue helping her.

 

As for me, even after I explained to the judge that I had turned left on the yellow light because that was the only way one could turn left on that boulevard, in those few seconds between yellow and red; and even when I told him that I actually did a good thing helping traffic move and there was no sign that said no turn on yellow, he advised me to pay the fee and offered to take the offense off my record.

– What if I don’t?

~ Don’t argue. You can’t take this to a higher court. The police department needs your financial help.

And so I helped the police department. That’s how I like to think of it.

Let me know your thoughts, dear reader.