T of Death (2/3)

I used to enjoy merging. On long drives home from Grove City, I’d merge happily on the freeway to keep myself amused and awake.

I realized today that I have become a right lane rider. After months of passing gruesome wrecks on the highway, merging has become a gamble with death. There’s a downside to parking in the right side lane too often, though. You tend to get stuck. The traffic flow experts can correct me on this, but it does seem that the left lanes go faster. But it’s safe in the right lane.

Last post about the T of Death, I bewailed against being so broadly skilled that you aren’t skilled at all. This week, I want to spread my caution against getting too stuck doing the same thing forever.

Ironically, this is often the result of being too diverse in one’s interests at some point. You take every job and internship you can get. Of course, a wood-carving class tends to lead to wood-carving internships which leads to a wood-carving job and before you know it, you’ve spent your whole life as the human equivalent of a termite.

I just want to make sure I don’t live my entire life in the right lane, playing it safe only to find out that I’ll never get where I want to go. The merge might be scary, dangerous, and potentially life-threatening but I’d rather be moving in the right direction than idiling in the same spot.