Life is Cool: Lessons learnt from a car key (iPPP Link)

Mr Cool drives a very sporty BMW. It is very cool, very stylish and suits him really well.


Occasionally I drive it. It is a fun car to drive, it corners really nicely and accelerates quickly. I think in a past life I was a race car driver. Not many people beat me across intersections, I like to really gun it to get a head start at traffic lights. I hope no Policemen are reading this, or I may be seen as an easy ticket!


Anyway, I digress.


Whenever I drive Mr Cool's car I struggle to lock/unlock it. This is what the key/remote locking thingie for the car looks like....

I am not sure if it is clear, but the big button at the bottom is for 'Lock' and then the little buttons at the top are for 'Unlock' and interior 'Lights on'.


I have thought about this key for a long time... It is a good metaphor for life.


I see that people are a lot like this remote locking device.


I know that my 'Lock' button is really prominent. Is yours? I find it hard to let people in. I find it takes a while to get to know them before I start telling them anything really deep about myself. I know it is important for people to get to know me and I know it is important for me to get to know other people, but... you know... sometimes I want to get a vibe about someone before letting them in too far. Before I let them grubby the floor mats.


Sometimes if people get too close too quickly I hit the 'Lock' button and hunker down inside myself to stop people from getting to know parts of me that I would prefer them not to. I hit 'Lock' at times when Mr Cool and I have a disagreement. And when friends tell me something I don't want to hear. Or when someone says something that upsets me. 'Locking' myself gives me space and time to think about the situation.


When I look at this remote, I marvel at how small the 'Unlock' button is. Isn't UN-locking a car so it can be driven more important than LOCKing the car? It seems counter productive to me. There is a beautifully crafted piece of German engineering genius that is hard to UN-lock? What is with that?


But, as humans it can be hard to un-lock each other to let others in. The conditions need to be just right.


The other button is for turning on the interior lights. We are not quite sure why this feature was seen as important enough to put onto the locking device, given that un-locking the car puts the  interior lights on, but, there it is. I think this too is an important human characteristic. It is helpful to be able to shed light on things. Some really uncomfortable things have been happening in my circles of friends. The ripples have been crashing into each other and it has been a really bizarre time. A few situations have meant that I have had to have some hard conversations. Conversations where I have had re-state my views and back track to where I said what to who and when and why. I have also had to hear some pretty hard stuff about some pretty lovely people. But, having the lights put on these situations has helped. I can see that I have grown and I have seen that I am okee-dokee-just-being-me-thank-you-very-muchly.

So... do you have a strange item that you use that could be a metaphor for life?

PS - I am feeling a bit smug - Mr Cool had no idea what the 'Lights on button' did! Yip yip for B!