A long time ago, I was visiting a friend in Orange County, California. As long as I was in the area, I wanted to visit another friend who lived about 30 miles away. I though that I could drive over in the morning, have lunch with my friend, and drive back in time for dinner. My Orange County friend said, "You can't do that. You could easily be stuck in traffic 3 to 4 hours in both directions...." That's
gridlock. Nothing moves. The term comes from traffic patterns, especially in big cities, in which the volume of traffic exceeds the capacity of the streets and roads to handle it. Simple traffic jams become complex traffic jams, and everything comes to a halt: gridlock.
If you've been following U.S. politics, you have seen that the same thing can happen in institutions when a sufficient number of individuals decide that compromise is for the weak and that "half a loaf" won't do—it has to be the whole loaf or nothing. The result is gridlock. In the U.S. Senate, the number of individuals required for creating gridlock is just one, so it is not surprising that political gridlock is a relatively common occurrence in Washington, D.C. If you've ever been stuck in a three-hour traffic jam or decided that you'd watch Congress craft a "health reform bill," you know exactly what gridlock looks like. If you live in the U.S., you may have seen additional illustrations in your state government. State governments—which typically have more difficulty running deficit budgets than the federal government does—often can't decide what's worth paying for. Funding for education, street and road construction and repairs, and police and fire protection are cut to the bone and then some.
But the kind of gridlock that occurs in traffic patterns and governmental bodies is not what concerns me here. Individuals—and perhaps you're one of them—can have gridlock all by themselves. Gridlock is a lot easier to observe in institutions and in others than it is to recognize in oneself. In traffic you notice that engines are running, but the cars aren't moving. In politics you notice that people are talking, but no one is listening—and no one is voting. If you're on a treadmill, you feel as though you are moving, but you really aren't going anywhere. Treading water keeps you afloat, but it doesn't get you to the other end of the pool.
This same thing can, of course, happen mentally and behaviorally. Even if you haven't said it yourself, you've undoubtedly heard someone else say, "Part of me wants [X], and another part of me wants [Y]." Or perhaps you've heard someone say, "On the one hand, I would like to [X], and on the other hand I want [Y]." The result is often gridlock. Or ... if the one hand wants something that's good for the person's health, and the other hand wants something that provides some kind of immediate gratification, guess which hand wins?
On the one hand, I really want to lose weight, exercise more, stop smoking, spend more time with my family, be nicer to the people I work with, etc.
But on the other hand, I'll have the cheeseburger, French fries, and "Death by Chocolate" for desert; I don't really have time to start exercising today; I really enjoy smoking; I have a lot of stuff I need to do before I take time off; I feel that others should be nicer to me, etc.
Everything serves a purpose, even if the purpose isn't immediately obvious. You've doubtless heard the saying, "As above, so below...." You may have looked at the current gridlock in the federal government and seen it for what it is. All of us might want to ask ourselves how our own behavior is a reflection of the recent behavior of the U.S. House and Senate. It works both ways: We can't always see it in ourselves, but "they"—the members of the House and Senate—are also a reflection of "us." In any gridlocked situation, the tendency is to see others as the problem. People in a traffic jam honk their horns because they want others to move, to get out of their way. I suspect that whenever you see massive "finger pointing," you're looking at a gridlocked situation.
At the personal level, mental gridlock results in either doing nothing—or continuing to do the same thing while expecting different results. You can undoubtedly see this phenomenon at work when you consider the current state of affairs in Washington, D.C., but it is more difficult to see at the personal level. Those stuck in traffic jams often continue honking even though previous honking hasn't caused the traffic to magically start moving. People hooked on a behavioral pattern—such as smoking, drinking sugary soft drinks, or eating salty snacks—often fail to see the gridlock at work. The same is also true for those hooked on a variety of perceptual viewpoints, whether political, religious, or interpersonal.
The compulsion to find "persecutors" to demonize—whether "Obamacare" or "The Party of 'No'"—leaves one stuck in the gridlock of the Drama Triangle. When we are busy blaming others for our perceived problems, we fail to notice that there is no "them." It's just us. Or, in the words of Walt Kelly's Pogo, "We have met the enemy, and he is us."
joel@scs-matters.com
www.scs-matters.com
