I lost my driver’s license a few years ago. Lost, I mean my license was revoked. It was due to the speeding. I love cars. I love driving fast!
In Japan, when the license was revoked the judge decides how many years the driver should wait before he or she can apply and take the driving test to get the brand new license. Well, my case was a 1 full year.
One of my student in the college learned I lost my license and suggested to ride bicycle and he even found one for me. It was a folding bike called Brompton made in UK. Very well made. We can fold it in such an easy manner so quickly, too. More than that, this student found an used one on sale with a incredibly nice price.
So I started riding a bike to my college work. Loved this bike and I was so happy everyday.
Then a year passed, took the drive’s test. The police officer at the driving test even praised my driving skills and I reposessed the new driving license successfully.Happy again!
Sure enough, since then I started driving my car everyday just like before.
However, when I got out from the bed in the morning, I often took a glance at my folding bike and thought, “I should ride this guy again. It was so fun and nice back when I was riding everyday”. But I ended up with driving my car everyday for years.
In this passed holiday I decided to clean my bike which was covered with incredible amount of dust and took it for a ride 2 days in a row. Not a long distance ride but it felt extremely nice and fresh.
Then I thought, “I love this bike so much but huuum, my love for the car I can’t put that behind either….”.
Well this is not a quiz but some of you might have noticed…
It is “a folding bike”! Why not hoppingi that thing in the car and go wherever and ride a bit of it after parking the car?
Simple! But my brain was locked into the thought of using either a bike or a car for the everyday’s whole commute.
I never thought of using both even though it is a folding bike.
My mind was locked because I had an experience of loosing the license and riding a bike everyday, and I also have an experience of happiness obtaining the license again and drove a car everyday.
My mind was totally inflexible.
I have heard from somebody that once the heavy truck got stuck at the enterance of Lincoln Tunnel in NY. The truck was totally stuck and the engineers were working to decide whether to rip toff he ceiling of the tunnel or take some parts out from the top part of the truck.
Then a little girl observing this incident said, “why don’t they deflate all the tires?”.
This might well be a made up story, but when we think of adult mind vs Children’s mind, we often find children’s mind being more flexible and creative.
So, it is a bit scary to have a preconception that is very inflexible because they came from one’s experiences.
You know what is more scary, though? ( I think of this especially because I am in mid 60’s now)
We might be calling this preconception, “old and wise”.