A Lesson In Consequences – You Better Be Ready To Outrun The Cops

People are always so willing to say “Whateva, whateva. I do what I want!”

But how many of us are willing to accept the consequences for that?

I’m one of those people who has two speeds in life. Fast. And Faster.

As much as I crave slowing down and living an intentional life, I find that I get bored (aka twitchy) when I do that. There’s too much to be done and too many things to explore and experience.

I was one of those kids that thought they were “missing out on something” when I wasn’t engaged. I don’t like falling in ruts. When I go out to dinner with people I try to sit with my back to the restaurant, otherwise I’ll get caught people watching rather than participating in discussion. (Note: This is especially bad form on first dates.)

My need for speed also spills over, a little too often, into my driving.

Having spent years in a job that logged me nearly 15K annual miles on a company car that I only used for business, I got comfortable on the road.

Really comfortable.

I love weaving highway traffic and flipping around on a back road. I’d contemplate stock car racing or demolition derbies if I had a car worth wrecking.

When you drive so often, and likely on deadline to get to a specific place by a pre-determined time, you begin to learn the rules and how you can bend them.

No more than 10 MPH over the speed limit on the highway and a police officer won’t even blink at you when you drive past.

I wonder if they know this and set speed limits for 10 MPH less than they want cars driving, assuming we are all going to press our luck breaking the rules.

Cause speeding is breaking the rules.

Fuck that. It is breaking the law.

Hear that Mom? I’m a criminal. I’m sorry. You raised me better. (Actually you didn’t. You guys taught me I could go up to 75 MPH on the highway. So really, this is your fault.)

Fortunately (I’d like to invoke an entire forest of trees to manifest beside me so I can knock on a lot of wood) I have never gotten a speeding ticket before.

But yesterday, as a state trooper practically escorted me for nearly 10 miles on the highway (for the record I was going only 70 MPH – my cruise control was set!) I realized that I had three options:

1. Merge into the breakdown lane and see if he was going to pull me over
2. Eyes straight ahead, focused on my drive, staying the course
3. Make a break for it and gun my Jeep to 95 MPH to begin a high speed chase down the highway dodging traffic and eventually Thelma & Louising myself over the New Hampshire border at the Piscataqua Bridge.

Look lovely. You’ve already broken the rules. You’re break-neck speeding down the highway at 70 MPH when the speed limit sign clearly indicates that the speed on Interstate 95 is 65 MPH.

You are shaking the dice in your hand. You are playing the game. You’re in it now.

That’s pretty much how life goes when we are pushing the boundaries. We have options.

What stops us from exercising these options is their consequences.

You know the consequence for speeding. It is a ticket.

You know the consequences for bending what ever rule it is you are going to break.

My guess is that somewhere, in some recess of your mind and soul, you have made peace with that consequence. If you are taking company time to work on your side hustle, you might get fired. If you are off-shoring your company domestication to dodge your country’s tax laws, you might get slammed with tax penalties in two nations. If you are not paying your credit card bills to pay other bills or drink lots of bourbon, you are going to get your credit revoked and some very angry creditor calls. If you are not replying to emails from clients/readers/Nana’s then some people are going to be pissed and tell you that you suck.

Now you look at your options. Pretend that you’ve been caught. What are you going to do?

1. Meekly hang your head and quietly accept the punishment someone else has decided you deserve for your actions
2. Avoid the situation, focusing instead on your end goal and hoping that the “authorities” either get bored or decide that you aren’t actually breaking the rules that much and move on
3. Throw up a big middle finger gesture to the world and run for it, full-speed toward you goal, flinging yourself into the safe territory of a new bracket of authority or a place of new-found obscurity.

Every different situation of bad-assery has a different approach to the solution. Avoiding an overdue creditors bill and hoping it will go away is irresponsible and ignorant. Yet meekly hanging your head and accepting punishment for pursuing your passions will not serve you or your employer in the end.

One thing is for sure though. Only go for solution three if you are prepared for a whole heaping load of consequences to come falling down on your head. Maybe it won’t. But you need to think about it and take it like a grown-up if you get caught.

I’m all for break-neck speed. Fast and faster. Push your boundaries, test your limits…see what happens. Often the worst that will happen is someone will tell you “no”.

If you are going to go for a break-neck speed get-a-way, you damn well better be ready to out run the cops.

But don’t ever use any of it to be an excuse for not doing something. The greater the risk the greater the reward.

Photo Credit – 21 months in to owning my Jeep and I only put 10K miles on it