One of my all time favorite sitcoms was "Taxi" and one of the funniest skits I remember is when Jim Ignatosky went to get his driver's license renewed. If you remember Jim was the taxi driver with the hashish-fried brain. While taking the written portion of his test he became perplexed with the question, "What does a yellow light mean?" He turns to fellow cabbie Bobby Wheeler and whispers, "what does a yellow light mean?" Bobby whispers back, "Slow Down" and Jim in his infinite wisdom whispers back only much slower, "What does a yellow light mean?" Bobby, in frustration whispers back, "Slow Down!" Jim once again only much slower whispers, "What does a yellow light mean?" I believe you get the point. Hopefully you can see that depending on who you are or how you observe a circumstance or event a different set of interpretations can be derived from it.

Yellow lights can also be a metaphor for our lives. Interestingly, when we approach an intersection while driving our car and the light is green we, as would be expected, continue to move through the intersection. The transparency of our thoughts and actions continue unnoticed, our reflective awareness is elsewhere. In other words we dont have to think about what we are doing we just continue on our way. If the light is red we really don't give it much thought either. We apply the brakes and come to a stop all while talking on the cell phone, drinking our coffee, and checking ourselves out in the rearview mirror. There is literally no break in our transparency or habits. We have developed these habits or transparencies as a driver and multi-tasker from our many cultural and social experiences individually and collectively.

However, when we approach the intersection and the light turns yellow we are forced to make a decision. Do we continue on or come to a stop. There is a break in our transparency and in this case we don't have a lot of time to decide so we react. Our reaction can be the result of what we are experiencing at the moment. If we are late for work we will probably make a different decision than we would if we were witness to an accident just the day before. It could also be the result of a long history of going through yellow lights without incident or the fact that when we were taught to drive our teacher told us to always stop for yellow. After we react our thought processes are broken from the transparency we were previously engaged. We may rationalize our decision to ourselves or say a little prayer if run the yellow and the light turns red before we are through the intersection. Our actions can become altered as well. We may be checking our mirrors to see if a police car observed our decision or take a few deep breaths because of the tension the moment created for us.

Life is very much like this yellow light. We are often faced with life transitions and although we may not have to react quite as quick we are often influenced by recent events. Moreover, from the moment we were born we have been accumulating layers of data, which we use to create habits and transparencies in our lives. When we reach an intersection in life, such as a change, transition, or crisis these historical discourses as well as our moods and emotions, and our physical presence, both biological and postural, influence our decisions.

As long as we our comfortable living in the drift or habits of our life and we are thrown no curve balls then life is good. However, what happens when we get tired of our transparency or we want to break free to follow our desires? Perhaps we receive some bad news like the loss of a loved one or for that matter we receive some good news like a promotion at work but we must move to another city. Well the fact is our discourses, moods, habits, old tapes, programming, and a host of other roadblocks collide with our desires to either break free or remain in our transparency.

The key is to first understand that this is normal and second we do not have to be slaves to our reactions. By discovering and developing our life's purpose and proactively working on our language, moods and emotions, and physical presence we can create and expand our future possibilities. We grow through learning. The answer lies in our desire to learn. By learning I do not mean knowing things or gaining more information, learning is about forming new interpretations and entering into new conversations in order to see and take different actions in your life. Ask yourself the question, "What does a yellow light mean?" If you are tired of the same old answer give me a call, let's have a conversation!