By Renee Shay, Harvesting Thought
–explore–
I was pulling into a parking spot at the grocery store and a friend said to me, “do you realize you always park in the left row of any lot?” She was right, no thought required, I am inclined to park on the left side. I posed the question back, “why wouldn’t I, I am on the left side of the vehicle?” She is right-handed so for her, she said it feels natural to park on the right side. How can we both be comfortable with opposite choices when the vehicle dynamics are the same? In American, the steering components are on the left of our vehicles, and we all drive on right side of the road. Yet, do we have unconscious preferences for which side of a parking lot is more comfortable for us?
–challenge–
Some choices we make as humans can be so ingrained into our behavior that we do not even notice the patterns we are following. Had she not said anything about this I may not have stopped to think about it. What other choices do I make that have developed in my life that are so routine I do not recognize them or really understand why I make them?
From an incredibly early age, we learn the art of “picking sides,” depending upon the activity we were doing. If it was during gym out in the school yard and the physical ed teacher said, “Okay, you two pick sides,” for a kickball game, who did you pick? You competed with the other kid to pick the most athletic kids; the boys were picked first so that you could have the best shot at winning. One by one, kids were sorted out like cattle, side to side, down to the last person. If you were inside a classroom and had to pick sides for a science project, the choices were quite different from the school yard, weren’t they? You would be looking for the most book smart kids to get the project done. There were two constants in these situations. No matter the team, there was no guarantee of a win and it never felt good to be the last kid picked.
–expand–
Making choices and choosing sides are such a part of our everyday world that we do not always recognize why we make one choice over another. From the time we are infants until our death, we make decisions that range from simple like choosing a kickball team, picking a parking spot, to more complex ones like where we want to live, who we want to love, who we are friends with, what brand of car we want to buy, the list goes onto infinity. We are the ones making decisions that impact our lives and think we know all the reasons behind them, but do we? Making decisions also impact the lives of others along the way. When you are picking sides in the games of life, do you worry about how others are affected?
Harvesting Thought 