i am on the trauma surgery service. every day i deal with patients who flew off their motorcycles, rolled their cars at high speed and are paralyzed, brain dead, in extreme pain and the list goes on. in one of my rare moment of reflection i thought of my dear old dad. he covered the ER at ventura county medical center and certainly saw the same types of patients.
a sense of guilt came over me as i thought of my 'occasional' speeding and my general flippancy about things speed. my father made a personal, moral decision years ago never to speed. i remember egging him on as a teenager on the way home from gunnison when his brothers and my cousins would pass us up before reaching levan ('navel' backwards).
the question is how his personal decision affected me. do i speed because i felt repressed all those years of being passed up? or do i feel guilt for speeding despite my father's decision that it is morally repugnant? am i personally more or less safe because of my father's decision?
one thing's for sure. i won't let the car roll until everyone has their seatbelts on...just like my father before me.
my steps to curb my son's need for speed? stickers like lightening...
18 comments:
i guess the first and fairest answer is that my dad has saved my life because i am a safer driver than i would have been without his example.
yes. paul. dad is responsible for all your bad decisions: either he has given you a good example and you have rebelled (his fault for giving a good example), or he has not explicitly stated do this or that, in which case you don't do it (but if he did say do it, you would rebel and not do it and it would still be a bad decision on your part).
thank you stephen. the question is not just how my father's decisions have affected me but how my decisions will affect my son.
you can joke, and my decisions are my own, but you can't pretend that your decisions are not influenced by those around you.
It is getting a little deep in here. Amy, post something else, quick!
stephen :)
paul.
i emphatically support that. life driven by what other's arent' doing is still driven by others...
(of which i too am guilty)
thank you peter.
the idea can be liberating. despite my shortcomings, others will choose what they will choose. in fact my son may be better because of my shortcomings...choosing to learn from my mistakes?
Anyone who knows Paul knows that he drives too fast. This is despite attempted intervention by his parents, his wife, and yes... the law. But just to set the record straight, he blames it on driving in the Philippines. So I guess his dad is actually off the hook!
It is true our lives are shaped by examples. I know my attitudes and choices are reflections of what I have seen. Even Stephen had a starting place for original thought. But in the end we have all chosen for ourselves. We absolutely have the choice to accept/reject what has been modeled for us. I am just glad that Paul has accepted much of what was modeled for him.
So whether it is Paul's need for speed because of his pokey father, or my eccentric need to throw away useless pieces of paper that sometimes turn out to be useful... our choices are ultimately our own.
amen.
paul.
funny cause when i think of fast driving. i think of paul. my hero paul. my hero paul walker! i can't believe they didn't get him for tokyo drift...!
peter: you got my hopes up there. but you know, you're not the first one to mistake me for paul walker...
Paul,
Genetics could be another thing you haven't considered. What kind of driver was your dad before doing his time in the trauma room? Have you asked him if he ever smoked up some tires? Chances are, if he calls his suburban "my 8.1 liter", he's put some marks on the road before.
So the question then becomes, how will you assimilate your experience with the trauma victims of vehicular accidents?
Just this week, a minivan was hit near Santa Fe. A young girl was the only one of the six person family to survive.
The risk of speeding in heavy traffic is high. The chances of making a deadly mistake are slim, but they increase with velocity. If you make a mistake, you may find the results are too much to bear.
We all have different personalities. It isn't simply a moral choice. I don't think a speeder like Paul has less respect for life than his father. It is a matter of perception of risk. That perception of risk is based on your own experience. Experience has much less to do with the passive or active influence of others on your life than your own choices, and your analysis of the results.
interesting matt. so passive influence, active influence and genetics all have lesser degrees of influence on a person's life than actual experience...
that worldview certainly allows for more personal accountability and jives better with the justness of a judgement day and that our actions affect our worthiness in the afterlife.
however that accountability is inexorably tied to the influences that have shaped our choices.
Ah, the influence of experience.
This is something I thought a lot about during my social work classes/practice... and Paul and I discuss it a lot. That is... moral choices/perceptions and the influence of the person's background/experience.
Our experience shapes our lives in so many ways... and tends to be quite influential in the way we see (or judge) others and their choices. Speaking for myself... it is so easy to paint the world according to my experience: My strengths should be easy for others, and my moral choices should be adheared to by all. In reality, every choice, perception, strength, weakness, etc. etc. etc. is so unique... according to our experience. It is easy to see why our eternal advocate must know us so personally.
Advocate is a social work term, by the way... and my favorite title for Christ.
ps... Abby took her first step today!
it would seem that i didn't see step #1, but i did see steps 2,3,4,5,6,7 & 8...
Hooray for our Mountainwest Champions!! Those seniors sure deserve it after those rough few years at the beginning...
And I loved John Beck's "Viva Las Vegas... Beat Utah!!!" Paul and I are so excited to go to that game next week!
And just so you know... today at our house, Michael was Hala Paongo, Paul was Manasa Tonga, and I was Fui Vakapuna--right up until bedtime (Michael's).
amy and paul AKA manasa and fui.
why only up to micheal's bedtime...?
why not up unitl your bedtime or forever for that matter? when you have a good thing going, let it go, let it run its course.
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