A few weeks ago, I wrote about something bizarre that happened to me (It's a two-minute read).
This post is somewhat of a sequel to that.
***
I was out for a walk with a friend the other day and he told me about something interesting that he noticed in his car.
When he hit a certain speed on the highway, he heard a specific sound.
While we didn't go into detail on the sound, I'm guessing it wasn't the good kind. Are there such things as good sounds in a car? Perhaps a car is one of those things where comfort is found in the absence of sound.
He only noticed this sound when he went above a certain speed.
The issue that was causing the sound existed at lower speeds as well surely, but it was only noticeable when he drove above a certain speed.
***
Several months ago, I injured my lower back in a fairly acute way.
I was playing squash with one of my best friends and I lunged backwards for a ball, at which point my back said, "Shum, you're driving too fast."
I ended up on the floor for a few minutes and was able to eventually get up and do some short laps around the squash court.
The issue that caused my back to react in that way existed prior to that squash game surely,
I just didn't notice it until I reached for that particular ball.
***
The question I'm left with after these stories is a simple one.
How can we sense problems early?
In these two stories, I've shared examples of problems that are somewhat mechanical in nature.
Where I think the sensing question becomes far more important is when you're dealing with problems that are non-mechanical in nature.
Two that come to mind are patterns of thinking and relationships.
Mechanical things can get regularly checked.
A car gets taken in for a service.
Do we have an equivalent of this regular check-up for non-mechanical things?
What might it look like for our patterns of thinking or our relationships to be taken in for a service?
