Intuition

I love a drive. Winding roads, mountainous heights, sea spray from the ocean, bring ‘em on. Driving for me is an action that mirrors a meditative process, as I drive, aimlessly have you, across random country roads, mountain valleys, highways, and oceanside thruways my mind moves from idea to idea, with a cadence often assisted by whatever music happens to come humming from the speakers in my car. There’s just one problem, the damn rearview mirror.

For the life of me I can’t get this mirror to stay in place so the traffic behind me is visible. Screwdrivers, keys, and even fingernails have entered the small screw that affixes the mirror to the assembly that holds it flush with the roof of the vehicle with no luck. Without a proper tool to fix the mirror, I went with something else, something much more powerful.

For reasons only Subaru can explain, when the rearview mirror is pushed up higher than need be, it’ll eventually settle into the right place with the assistance of the bumps in the road the vehicle negotiates as it twists and turns on your average roadway. In other words, via intuition the mirror can be adjusted to fall into place right when you need it most. Intuition literally fixed the mirror issue, but also speaks to a much greater principle of leading a prosperous life.

The other day I watched a biographer on TV speaking of Kurt Cobain’s death. The gentleman explained that prior to the OD/suicide of the famed Nirvana singer and 90’s icon, there was an eerily similar episode in Rome, where Mr. Cobain did virtually the same thing as what eventually killed him, but only ended up in the hospital. Without getting into the average life trajectory of those that are addicted to drugs, it’s fair to say that most of the people that cared about Kurt Cobain had been forewarned, his life was on very thin ice. Not long after his brush with death, after exiting rehab, he succeeded in what he had failed at months earlier, surely many close to Cobain were wondering if they had already known his fate before it occurred.

Intuition is mistakenly defined often as innate sense, like having a gut feeling, when more times than not intuition is a learned trait from experience. Just as my vehicle bumped and knocked the mirror down over and over again that it became abundantly clear to place the mirror higher to start so it lands right on place, there are many life experiences where intuition can solve problems without the issues that come with reason. Reason makes you question both sides of something, good and bad, what if this doesn’t work out, what if it does? What will Dad think of my popsicle business, what will Mom think of me dropping out of the PhD program? Reason becomes more powerful with every question, and often can push you into a state of shock, frozen to do nothing, as not to disappoint anyone.

Intuition tells you that more than likely something is going to happen, you and your soul know it, so it’s best to go about setting things in place for when that thing, whatever it is, eventually happens. Setting your own rearview mirror to the right place with the help of intuition, as to let it clearly showcase your past, might just help inform your success in the future.