Look out! Look where you’re headed! How often have we heard this warning? And how often have we heeded it? And when we haven’t, how often have we stubbed our toe or fallen? Warnings should do exactly what they’re intended to accomplish – to alert us to what lies ahead and help us to concentrate on the road we’re on at the moment. And a warning, while sounding very demanding, has only the power to make us follow it to the extent that we allow.
Perhaps you don’t realize or appreciate the degree of control (power) you have over your own life, over the direction you are headed. While you may feel ‘controlled’ rather than controlling ultimately you still have the decision and control over your attitude and over your willingness to accept the control. But is your analysis accurate over the amount of control you can exercise… especially over you and your actions? It always is up to us to heed, or not, the warning to look where you’re going.
Perhaps the problem causing the warning isn’t as dire as it sounds, maybe it is more so. Question is – if you don’t look, what are you allowing to happen – do you want to reap from not even taking the time to see the relevance of the warning? Heeding becomes an entirely different decision? Ignoring kinda smacks of pride. And everyone knows what comes next.
Granted that a warning to you may not be significant to me but you can’t dismiss the fact that someone sounded the alarm. That someone was concerned enough to want to spare you the problem of a fall or something worse. If you were in the position, would you sound an alarm? This is another layer to the warning issue. Would you be willing to call out the ‘look out’ realizing that it may not be a danger to someone or that it may not be favorably accepted?
In my experience, whether the alarm is critical or merely an alert to potential problems, I will take the time to stop my progress and look. Looking costs me nothing and may save me from future problems. It does seem a bit of cutting off the nose to spite the face to not look.
