THINK ABOUT WHAT YOU ARE DOING

This is a big theme of mine, yet it's so hard to do. Humans get on autopilot so easily. We also make assumptions we never realize we're making. We spend our time focused on solving a problem without considering the larger context in which that problem exists. It is very difficult to objectively examine one's actions when the very basis of that examination is flawed.

I have to get on the highway to go to work. The actual getting on the highway part isn't so bad. Getting onto the entrance ramp itself, however, is ugly. You enter from the left and have to yield to traffic coming in from the right, and not just coming in from the right, but coming from below and behind. Cars appear out of nowhere (don't even get me started about springtime when the grass starts to grow high). Plus there are two lanes and it's very difficult to tell if the car coming up is in your lane or the other one. You can think you've got a clear sail to the end of the ramp when suddenly there's someone in the lane you want to merge into, then you have to slam on your brakes and pray the guy behind you is paying attention (they have been, thank goodness) and even realizes that this lane is the one yielding. The county added another sign recently to emphasize this point, but people still get confused - I get honked at fairly often for waiting at the yield sign. You could look over your shoulder ahead of time, but that's a heck of a look. Take too long and you'll rear end the guy stopped at the yield sign (I've almost rear ended three different people this way). Even when you're stopped and waiting you have to be careful. I once almost drove into the guy in front of me because between the time I'd seen him start to pull off and the time I decided to go, he decided he didn't have room.

I call this merge the Merge of Death. It's an appropriate name. So why then am I still using it? I mean, for goodness sake, I call it the Merge of Death! That should be a big warning sign right there. Nope. I complain about it. I get frustrated by it, stressed by it, and occasionally terrorized by it. Yet, until about a week ago it never occurred to me that I did not have to use it. I can think of two other exits not much further away that are much easier and safer to use. I use them now, but for the past year I've been using the Merge of Death. A year full of close calls and near misses. A year of calling it the Merge of Death, of praying nobody follows me onto the ramp, of feeling palpable relief when I get on smoothly. I've been lucky and I recognize that now. I'm not going to use it again.

For a year I spent my time figuring out how to best get onto that ramp safely. I never took that step back to consider that it might be safer just to not use the ramp at all. I was thinking about what I was doing, I just wasn't thinking wide enough. Merge of Death... sheesh.