I have some pretty bad habits, and they aren't all just quirky, funny, or weird. They aren't as easily rectified as cleaning out my purse, checking a mouse trap, or biting my tongue (although that one's pretty hard at times).
And some of these habits have been years in the making (fifty to be exact--that's half a century of habit development). A lot of time to dig the hole, pour in the quik-crete, tamp it down, soak it with the garden hose, and watch it set up.
Years ago I used to patronize this establishment just off of I-65--with my children, in strollers. We used to buy their back-to-school Oshkosh B'Gosh outfits here, and wind up at the book store with ice cream cones.
The outlet mall that kept this exit hopping with families, with beachgoing Canadians, with folks looking for a bargain, has long since become defunct. In its place is the "adult" establishment you see advertised above. The asphalt is potholed, the parking lot scruffily barren. At night the lights glow dimly, dully, obscenely. I turn my head away because I know somewhere inside that outlet mall a girl the same age as one of my own daughters is doing things to and with men old enough to be her grandfather just to make a dollar.
And the habit? The one I've been avoiding acknowledging? At the same time I turn my head I turn up my nose. I allow myself to feel superior, better than, above. And in the few short seconds it takes my mini-van to speed by this exit I minimize the lives of every single person who ever drove through those potholes, of every single girl who ever called this place a job.
I elevate myself above another human being instead of allowing myself to see their plight.
I told you it was ugly.
I spend a lot of time on I-65, coming and going, taking and delivering. In any given year I pass this exit a multitude of times. And a multitude of times I allow myself to feel better than, instead of akin to.
An essentially bad habit--because as Coach has reminded me, watch your habits, they become character.
What this habit says about my character is this:
I take the cheap, easy route in assessing my fellow man.
I take the cheap, easy route in finding my place among my fellow man.
I take the cheap, easy route in processing the lives of my fellow man.
This past Sunday, a day still celebrated in most of our country as God's own day, I found myself yet again on I-65.
And in the amount of time it takes a mini-van to pass an exit I began work on developing a new habit--it will take the next fifty years to get it right, if I ever do.
Every single time I pass this exit, every single time I see a sign like this, every single time I have the urge to turn my nose up, I'm going to put my head down.
I'm going to put my head down and send a little, honest-to-God message from my heart to the hearts of every single person in there at that exact moment and it's going to be this:
I know you're there. I'm sorry you're there. I hope you never have to go there again--I want better for you in your life.
That's all. Pretty pathetic and small in the world of habits, in the universe of doing unto others.
But in my pinchlipped little universe of character development, I hope it's a start in the right direction.
This post is the fourth in a five-part series.
