Pulling Your Head Out
There’s room for the rest when we pull our head out.
I’m sitting by the airport restrooms -- don’t judge me, there’s some good people watching to be had there. Which is why I’m starting off by telling you that I’m sitting by the airport restrooms.
There’s a restroom for the men on the left and for the ladies on the right.
A male traveller, preoccupied with the organic light-emitting diode technology of his cell phone absentmindedly walks into … the ladies' room.
A female traveller, seeing the man do this, chooses the opposite restroom which she presumes is not the men’s room, but it is.
Just do you don’t dump this out of your memory, allow me to keep you plumb: a man has walked into the ladies’ room and a woman has walked into the men’s room.
The woman wastes no time figuring out her mistake, immediately coming back out of the men’s room. But before she can roll into the correct restroom, another man, seeing a woman come out of the door on the left assumes that must be the ladies’ room and so chooses door number 1, the wrong door.
The woman having seen the wall-mounted toilets in the “women’s” room but then seeing two men go into the “right” room – as in, on the right – looks very confused and flees the scene.
In the end, I watch no fewer than 4 men go into the ladies’ room and 3 ladies go into the men’s room before the next contestant in “toilet or urinal” verifies restroom accuracy by cross-checking the label on the door.
Have you ever caught yourself on auto-pilot, living life with your head down, following the lead of others, stuck in habitual patterns?
We get in trouble when we stop thinking for ourselves. That’s right, I said it — when you stop thinking for yourself, you’re in trouble.
When I catch myself living like this, I can hear my pilot training instructor yelling at me, “Barrett, pull your head out!” His words leak from my memory into the pipes of my daily life, flushing me off of the throne of just following the crowd.
We can all benefit from that advice. Pull your head out, keep your head up and be sure you’re aiming for the right door.