Holy cows! A village traffic jam, Indiana Jones and lessons in moving forward.

by Vishnu | Jun 2, 2012 | Inspiration, Motivation, Personal Development

A cow traffic jam can ruin your morning.

A rush hour traffic jam.

Traffic jams and accidents in the pueblo, or village, take on a life of their own.

Earlier this week, I traveled from the Costa Rican pueblo I’m living in for the summer, Biolley, to another nearby pueblo, Las Tablas. We went in my friend’s truck to pick up a student volunteer who was joining us at the farm for a couple of weeks.

It was a typical morning in Costa Rica; heavenly! The sun was shining, the birds were chirping, the greenery was as vibrant as ever. We even left 2 hours early for the 30 minute ride down to the Las Tablas bus stop, trying to capture the beauty of this region with our cameras.

As we  drove down the last winding turn towards a straight road that would take us into Las Tablas, we approached a trailer full of cows sitting in the middle of the bridge! (see photo above) The trailer could not make it up the small uphill climb because of the weight of the cows.

Indiana Jones to the rescue.

Since the trailer was stuck in the middle of the narrow bridge, cars couldn’t travel either way. 8 am in the morning, a trailer full of cows in the middle of the road, traffic stopped on both sides, what would you do if you got stuck on this traffic jam?

Exactly. Stop the engine, get out of your car and chit chat with all your neighbors from the village who you hadn’t seen in weeks. As we commiserated and tried to find the humor in this situation, we realized our cell phones didn’t have reception in the area to make calls or communicate with anyone.

At that point, we didn’t know how many kilometers away the actual bus stop was and it was nearing 8:30 a.m, the time the student volunteer was to arrive. As we looked out into the sea of cows stomping with restlessness in the trailer, a frustrated driver who couldn’t figure out how to move his heavy trailer, and no cell phone reception, I volunteered to do the only thing I could do in that situation.

Walk across the bridge to the bus stop.

My Indiana Jones-like tactics required I tip toe without falling into the river behind me and without getting a kiss from the agitated cows whose faces were literally a couple inches away from mine.

I had to walk past the entire trailer, clutching onto the rails with my life, to get over to the other side of the bridge. Once I made it across, I started to walk towards the bus stop. I commenced my long and treacherous uphill journey, uncertain of how many kilometers away the actual bus stop was located.

When you move forward past the initial road blocks, the obstacles seem to disappear.

I made it past the cow-filled trailer and began to walk towards the bus stop.

To my relief, the bus stop was only 1.5 km from the derailed cow trailer. I reached the bus stop exactly as the bus arrived. The student volunteer and I started walking back to our friend’s truck.

A local merchant in a van pulled over and offered us a ride back to the bridge. He rolled his eyes at us when we tried to explain to him a trailer full of cows had broken down back at the bridge. He drove us back to the bridge, where we jumped out and trekked back across the bridge, holding onto the rails with our lives.

Without falling in the ditch again or exchanging kisses with the cows, we got back to the other side of the bridge. Our friend was able to make a u-turn with her truck and we headed back home to the farm.

What does a broken down cow-filled trailer have to do with life? Well, if you confront an angry-cow filled trailer traffic jam, you have 2 choices. You can sit there and wait it out or try to move forward despite the obstacles.

All I did was decide to cross the bridge to walk to the bus stop.

From there, I found that it was just a short distance to the bus stop. The bus also arrived exactly when I did. A local merchant gave us a ride back and we were able to head back home a lot sooner than if we had sat in the traffic jam until the driver had figured out the physics of moving his cow-filled trailer.

When facing obstacles and challenges, you just have to move forward. While I could have ended up kissing a cow or falling into a river, I didn’t. And once I showed the situation I was willing to take a smooch from my four-legged friends, the other obstacles just disappeared right in front of me.

What about you? What do you do when facing a trailer full of cows? How about other life obstacles? Have you noticed that obstacles tend to fall away when you take them on? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

A couple other photos of the scenery that morning.

Costa Rican scenery

River from afar

Another couple of cows (not in the trailer)

21 Phrases People Who Resist Taking Action Use

by Vishnu | May 28, 2012 | Inspiration, Motivation, Personal Development

This train's on Indian time. What's your excuse mate?

Ahhh…you’re back for more, eh?

What’s happened since we last spoke about delay and resistance? Did you start that blog? Kick off that business? Fire your stockbroker? Un-friend the deadbeat “friends” on Facebook?

To those of you who simply say, “screw it, I’m just not going to do it right now no matter what my attorney or Vishnu says”, you’ve embraced resistance and procrastination in your life. The bigger problem is for everyone else who’s in denial about resistance.

The language of resistance.

Resistance is putting things off in your life which you need to be doing but are not, for some strong underlying reason. It’s why you don’t take the garbage out until 4:59 a.m. (1 minute before pick-up time), why you never go to your in-laws house for dinner and why you keep library books with you until you receive an ‘intent to sue’ letter from the library. It’s why you don’t go to the dentist, why you stopped going to church and why you’ll never go on a diet.

The problem with resisting action is that it’s easy to overlook the language we use to delay. We can be incredibly creative in putting off tasks. Language is one cue that can help show us how clever we are when resisting action.

While the examples I share below may be over the top, the 21 trigger phrases I suggest (they’re italicized and underlined) are phrases we may be using regularly to resist action.

Which of these phrases have you said to yourself lately?

1. I really should become an A-list actor and do a movie with Brad Pitt. (My friend, Amy, just wrote about why you need to stop ‘should-ing’ your life away.)

2. I need to give up my Wall Street job and save children in Sudan.

3. If I had enough time, I would start a business that would allow people to post photos of their faces online and then create a social media platform where they can connect with each other based on shared likes and interests.

4. If I was a millionaire, I’d hire Tim Brownson to move into my guest house and be my life coach and spiritual advisor.

5. If I only could wake up in the mornings meditate, I could find inner peace and reach enlightenment by the end of the year.

6. I could run a triathlon if I really wanted; I’d do 3 a year and probably set some world records.

7. I’d like to travel to France, climb the Eiffel tower, walk over to the Pierce Brosnan-looking businessman staring out into the streets of Paris and tell him that we were destined to be with each other.

8. If God had wanted it, I’d have a house golf-course side in Palm Springs too.

9. When I meet the right agent, publisher and editor, I should be able to start writing my New York Times best seller.

10. If I had gone to school for that, I would have probably dropped out of Harvard and started Microsoft in a garage.

11. Once the housing market rebounds, I’m going to save up a little bit of money to buy a couple rental properties in the Florida Keys.

12. I need to stop working until 9 p.m every night and see my 2 year-old twins a couple nights a week.

13. One day, I’m going to start eating vegetables, lose 100 pounds and audition to be the guy who replaces Jared on those Subway commercials.

14. I love the idea of going into work at the post office, telling my boss to ‘stuff it’ and start that around the world overnight delivery service I’ve always dreamed of. (Actually, I know a blogger who did just that, with some slight variations of course). Milo said goodbye to the civil service, gave them plenty of notice about his departure and now is a full-time freelance copywriter. He didn’t just love the idea but he made it happen!)

15. I must forgive my third grade teacher for beating me in class every week when I was growing up and I must stop casting spells on her via this voodoo doll I had shipped over from the Caribbean islands.

16. I’m going to stop partying every week night til 2 a.m. at the clubs, spending my hard-earned money on booze and late night Denny’s runs.

17. When the new year rolls around, I’m going to stop smoking, turn vegan, drink organic water, cut out carbs, move out of my Mom’s basement, go up and see my Mom weekly and get a job!

18. If I knew people, I’d be in the U.S. Senate too and would have been Vice President by now instead of that Joe Biden guy.

19. My dream is to quit this waitressing gig in my hometown of Otis, Kansas and perform those country western songs I sing around the campfire to a live audience. (What if your dream was to quit your job, move to Japan and become a ninja? Yeah, I know someone who did that.)

20. Once the kids are grown, I’m going to give up my career as a trucker and really get serious about raising goats and selling them.

21. I would like to travel the world and teach people languages when I retire in 20 years. (One globe-trotter who didn’t wait 20 years and is teaching languages while she travels is my friend, Maria. If you want to learn Spanish online, she’s a Skype call away.)

We can’t knock out resistance in our lives unless we learn to identify the language we use to resist. That was my stab at common resistance phrases I’m familiar with and hell, may have even used at different points in my life.

Did I miss any? What words or phrases do you use to resist taking action in your own life? Let me know in the comments below. 

By the way, do you love goats? If you do, check out what rush hour looks like on the Costa Rican farm that I’m living at, Morning Rush Hour on the Farm. Also, check out a recent guest post I did on Bjorn’s blog, Culture Mutt.

* Photo by Passetti