Right Of Way

Many years ago (more years than I care to admit) when I was taking my driver's license exam, there was one test question that stood out and I still remember it to this day. The question was, "What is the most important thing to remember about right of way?" The correct answer is: "Don't insist on it."

Insisting on one's right of way can lead to road accidents when other drivers are not street smart enough to recognize who has right of way or if they simply ignore it. It can certainly result in road rage when one's right of way is not respected. How many of us have railed against unruly bus or jeepney drivers who just do what they want on the road and are even the ones who get angry if we scold them?

The concept of "right of way" can also be applied to living life as well. "Right of way" in one sense comes from a feeling of entitlement. A right to speak, a right to feel, a right to get one's way. While it's important to recognize and value one's rights, operating too much from a sense of entitlement can lead us to hurt others by doing what's "right" for us but hurtful to others, or can get us hurt in turn if majority opinion is against us or someone more powerful insists on his/her way.

Just as a sense of entitlement comes from being attached to the idea of our rights or what is due to us, not insisting on one's right of way is a reflection of detachment. And so we go back to the root of suffering according to the Buddha, which is desire (desire being a form of attachment). We suffer when we don't get what we want or we are not given what we feel is ours by right.

We need humility in order to detach and give way, but humility can be difficult if we think that giving way diminishes one's worth in some way, as if we got one upped. It all boils down then to a question of self worth.

This type of reflection is even more important for spiritual people, because humility is not necessarily a given for those treading the spiritual path. For people on the spiritual path, it can be so easy to feel puffed up by one's beliefs or by what we think we know such that the temptation to look down or get angry at "non-spiritual" people is there.

Yehuda Berg of the Kabbalah Centre once wrote that just as we can't be mad at someone for being a bad singer, we can't get upset with someone because they're not spiritual. Again, there is the sense of entitlement that spiritual people deserve the better things in life, so we can get angry if we don't get the treatment or recognition that we feel is due to us.

I've read somewhere that wisdom consists of knowing what to do, if you should even do it, and when to do it if it must be done. As we end the week let's reflect on where our sense of self worth comes from. Does it come from the "treasures we lay in heaven" or from the opinions of other people, especially those most close to us?

It's a question only each of us can answer and it can be a tricky exercise, but how we answer it will determine how easy it will be for us not to insist on our right of way.