SPEAKING OF VALUES By Joseph Walker

Moving forward by looking back It was almost an incident. Looking back, it could have been huge. A real day-wrecker - if not life-altering. Thankfully, it was a near miss. No incident And that’s hardly incidental. I was returning to the office after a meeting in a city about 30 miles away. Turning onto the freeway on-ramp, I found myself trapped behind a big, slow-moving ice cream truck. Now, I like to think of myself as a fairly calm, patient, reasonable person. But I do have a tendency to get a little.. well, you know.. impatient behind the wheel of an automobile in certain circumstances. Like when I’m trapped behind big, slow-moving trucks. So my first impulse was to swerve around this truck even though there wasn’t really an appropriate lane in which I could safely do so. My hands gripped the steering wheel, and I started into the swerve motion. And then I hesitated. I’m still not exactly sure why. It wasn’t because I saw the little car coming up so quickly behind me, because - to be perfectly honest - I didn’t. I didn’t pick him up in my rear view mirror or in my side mirror, because.. well.. I can’t say that I actually looked in either place. And yes, I know how frightening it is that I was about to swerve around a slow-moving truck on a single-lane freeway on-ramp without looking back. I told you: I get impatient. Only this kind of impatience is spelled c-r-a-z-y. Even more frightening is the fact that the driver of the little car behind me evidently gets even crazier.. er, more impatient than I do. He roared around me just as I was tensing up to swing out around the truck. Thankfully, I hesitated long enough to catch a glimpse of his front bumper out of the corner of my left eye. If I had acted on my initial impulse to swerve.. well, it could have been ugly. You can bet that I have since made a mental note to look back before I swerve from now on - assuming I swerve at all. In fact, as I’ve reflected on the incident - or non-incident, if you will - I’ve decided that “looking back” is a pretty good idea in many different contexts. And that’s a new concept for me. I’m sort of a forward-looking, keep-a-goin’, don’t-stop-now- we’re-almost-there kind of guy. I tend to not look back, largely because I’m also the kind of guy who makes a lot of mistakes, and looking back only reminds me of the dumb things I’ve done. Like the time I gave Dad’s car keys and credit card to my 14-year-old nephew and told him to drive Dad’s car down to the gas station and fill it up. When my Dad and my big sister heard about that.. Uh.. on second thought, I’d just as soon not look back on that. Still, you get the idea. Even painfully embarrassing memories like that one can be good to revisit from time to time, as long as we’re prepared to apply the lessons we’ve learned from those experiences to present and future choices. That’s how we learn. And grow. And develop. And avoid getting yelled at by our Dad AND our big sister. Looking back can be a healthy exercise for individuals, families, communities and nations. It helps to keep us grounded to our principles and values. It helps to keep us focused on our original goals and ideals. Pausing to look back at where we’ve been and what we did gives us the opportunity to remember where we were and why we did what we did, and that can help us to move forward with greater clarity, purpose and vision. While helping us to avoid certain ... you know ... incidents.