Oh @#$%, I didn't see you there...

This is Part Two of an ongoing How-To series that started with apologizing successfully.

Today's topic: How To Merge Into Traffic.

We all know someone, or have seen someone, who completely and utterly fails at merging into highway traffic. Whether it's as simple as not looking to see who might be in the target lane, or entering the highway at a mere 20 mph, millions of people fail on a daily basis. Sometimes the cost of this failure is getting honked at or flipped off. Sometimes, it is much, much higher.

Let's start with some common mis-perceptions:

1. They'll see me coming and get out of the way.
2. My phone call is too important to pay attention to anything else.
3. I'll save gas by accelerating very slowly.

I am going to go out on a limb and say that a good majority of the people on the highway will see you failing at merging. They know you're coming down the ramp, and chances are, they will get out of your way. Very few people honestly believe that they are the most important thing in the universe and so they freely give up their personal space to anyone who acts like they just might be more important. The problem with relying on this approach is that, eventually, you'll meet someone who is more important than you, who will be counting on the fact that YOU will see THEM coming, and will make way appropriately. When the two of you interact on the highway, only bad things can happen.

Now for Mr.-(Or Mrs.-)Very-Important-Phone-Meeting. Your call may very well be important to you. It could be the meeting that reveals a legal detail that allows you to put the law-breaker in jail for half a century, stopping the serial killings that have been plaguing the country for months... Or, more likely, it's you just asking your significant other if they want you to stop at Wendy's or Taco Bell for dinner tonight. I have a surprise for you... Your call is less important than your life, and the lives of everyone that you're going to blithely plow into on the highway. Hang up the phone and focus on not killing yourself and everyone around you. At the very least, get a hands-free set and pay attention to the road.

Ah, the environmentalist in the hybrid. You know, you're doing your part for the planet, and that's awesome. Good for you. But you're dead wrong. Accelerating slowly on the highway actually burns quite a bit of extra gas/diesel/biofuel. I'll show you how: Everyone on the highway is going 60 mph. If you accelerate enough to be going 40 mph when you enter the highway, you'll save (yay for made up numbers) 0.05 gallons of extra fuel. When you calculate that you enter highways about 40 times per week, that adds up to a pretty significant amount of saved fuel. Unfortunately, you failed to take into account the gas mileage of every single person who you just forced to slam on their brakes. See, you forced 5 (yay for more fake numbers) people to decelerate to 40 mph to avoid hitting you and each other. Now you have a total of 6 cars who need to accelerate from 40 to 60 mph. If they were all hybrids like yours, that's a total of 0.30 gallons of fuel that didn't need to be wasted. But let's be honest... they're not all hybrids. They're SUVs, Hummers, luxury vehicles. Which means that in the process of adding 120 mph worth of acceleration into those 6 vehicles combined, you actually just wasted nearly 4 gallons of fuel. Mr. Environmentalist... you, by yourself, just killed three acres of rain forest. Bet you feel like a chump now, eh?

But I digress, this is a How To, rather than a How Not To, so I'll get to it.

1. Begin accelerating from the top of the ramp. Quickly. You need to hit at least 55 mph by the end of the ramp; faster if traffic is speeding.
2. When you're halfway down the ramp, check the lane that you will be merging into. See the spacing of the vehicles and their relative speeds. Pick a spot. Continue accelerating.
3. At the bottom of the ramp, you should be in line with the spot that you picked for your merge. You should also being going EXACTLY as fast as the cars in front of and behind your chosen spot. Your goal is to slide seamlessly into traffic, without causing any brake lights to light up.
4. Congratulations, you're on the highway and everyone is still alive and happy.

Destiny, Fate, Determinism... I'm not buying it.

Gusby, as you're aware, there are two schools of thought on the focus of this blog: Destiny, Fate and Determinism.

The first school is that these things exist in a daily capacity in our lives. That everyone we meet, we were destined to meet them... fated to be friends or lovers or whatever, it was determined for us by previous events on this planet that we should interact in some meaningful way, or not. That everything that happens to us, happens because it was determined that it should.

The flip side is that things do not exist. There is no reason for anything that happens; the world is just a giant Random Number Generator.

I don't buy into either one of those mindsets. In fact, I think I fall squarely into the middle of the road on this one.

Perhaps it was Destiny, Fate or Determinism that led me to send the chat message that started the longest, most meaningful relationship of my life. It's entirely possible that it was... But it was by my choice that I have continued to work so hard to maintain that relationship.

Perhaps karma has a say what external influences are placed upon us. Karma throws us into situations that we need to learn to handle with grace, love and forgiveness. We both know that I've certainly been thrown into a situation.

For the last six or seven years, I've been railing against Destiny, Fate, Determinism. It wasn't until this morning that I realized that not only have I believed in free will and the power of human choice (and have been spouting off about it to those inclined to listen)... but I can apply this simple fact of existence to any situation that I find myself in.

I can choose to do nothing, and whine... or I can choose to do something, and succeed.

So, I am choosing to set aside the "woe is me" mentality that I've felt stuck in. I am choosing to give up the whole, "I just need someone to throw me a bone." excuse that I've been hiding behind. It's especially flimsy when I honestly admit to myself that people HAVE thrown me bones (even people whom I hardly know), and I've ignored or dodged them.

I am choosing to give up fear.

And like everything else in my life, it's my choice... and nothing can make it for, or take it from, me.

I'm sorry, but...

Hey Gusby,

I'd like to ask for your help in sharing a message of communication. Can you get this out to the people who need it the most, and the people who don't really need it but that it can help anyway?

Apologies: They're not easy. It's difficult to admit that you've done wrong.

First, let's see how NOT to apologize.

"I'm sorry, but you..." Sure, at first glance this may seem like a perfectly acceptable apology. It is erroneous, however, in that rather than truly being repentant of your actions or the consequences, you're seeking to place the blame squarely upon the person you wronged in the first place. You may feel it is entirely their fault, but the word "but" doesn't belong in an apology.

"I'm sorry, but I..." Again, this looks perfectly acceptable. While you're not pinning the blame on anyone else, you're trying to provide rationalization for your behavior. Rationalization is good, and can be helpful in trying to explain to someone why you acted the way you did. It can help speed up understanding and even possibly help avoid the same issue in the future. It, however, has no place in the apology itself; it is more suited to the discussion following the apology.

Now, let's see a couple appropriate apologies.

"I'm sorry." Hey, look at that. A simple statement of fact, with no rationalization or blame. This short phrase (as any husband knows) can be quite powerful and effective at ending hostilities and setting the stage for a more communicative and beneficial discourse.

"I'm sorry. I feel bad for what I did and I'd like the chance to explain why I acted in that fashion." This, Gusby, is still a perfectly acceptable apology. The powerfully short statement of fact, an admission of wrong-doing, and a request for a more communicative and beneficial discourse, all rolled into one sweet phrase.

It is a definitive fact of life that communications get out of control, and sometimes hurtful things are said. No single person communicates perfectly with any other person. Even the most harmoniously married couples still have misunderstandings and occasions to clarify and, yes, apologize.

When you take responsibility for your actions ("I'm sorry that *I* lost my temper, that *I* yelled at you, and that *I* called you an asshole.") you're not giving up your side of the argument. You can still be pissed off that the person you yelled at called you a liar. You're not admitting that you were wrong in all ways, just that you were wrong in how you handled your side of it.

If we could all learn to accept that sometimes it is our *behavior* that is wrong, not necessarily our view of the situation, then perhaps we could all learn to calm down and discuss issues as adults.

And if you, Gusby, would pass this message along to anyone who would benefit from it, I'd greatly appreciate it.

Thanks!

-A