2B1 Lesson - Identifying Criteria to be Alert About
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Driving a vehicle is one of the best situations in which to begin practicing increased alertness. This particular activity can also help us understand the active detailing involved in becoming more self-aware. This lesson explains the importance of knowing what to be alert about while driving as well as while getting to know our minds better.
Having a watchful concern toward how skillfully and appropriately we are applying our minds overall is essential to developing healthier minds. It is through this conscious concern that we track the quality of our thoughts, communications, and behavior more closely than natural. Similarly, being aware of the current quality of our driving is necessary to become more particular about managing the quality of our driving skills. How accurately we can define the current quality of our driving relates to how well we are applying emotional intelligence; both rely on how alert our minds are to evaluate the criteria involved. Thus, improving alertness also relies on knowing what criteria to pay attention to.
This comparison explains why practicing alertness while driving is one of the best places to practice increasing our alertness and understand the active detailing involved in becoming more self-aware. To drive, we should already be familiar with much of the criteria involved and know the value of paying closer attention to those particular details. To become more self-aware, we also need to know the value of paying closer attention to the detailing involved and know the criteria to pay attention to.
Defining and Regulating Alertness
Webster’s Dictionary defines alertness as: “keenly attentive, watchful, actively observant.” Alertness has also been described as “being totally present”, mindful, consciously concerned or, more abstractly, being “on the ball” and “having all the lights on”. When we combine such active attention with familiarity of the particular detailing involved, we have a clearer basis to work from in order to improve the particular skill. In this lesson, the skills are self-awareness and driving.
When we consider all the benefits of alertness, it’s easier to understand why alertness would be among the most important mind functions to learn to more skillfully and consistently apply. Yet, without alert attention toward alertness itself and knowing what to be alert about, it can be difficult to apply. It’s kind of like looking for our eyeglasses and needing the glasses or further clues to find them.
Without being purposeful about alertness, our minds can subtly and/or erratically wander to and from a high, medium and low range of attention. If we aren’t careful, our minds can stray from engaged, guarded alertness to casual attention or even complacency without our realizing that it is happening.
We can miss subtle cues, without heightened alertness, clues that could otherwise provide healthier direction. We might further compare the complexity of practicing alertness while driving to that of an orchestra conductor’s multitasking skills. While driving alertly, we carefully learn to timely alternate between viewing the road in front of us and scanning the wide-angled scene around us—to zooming in and focusing in on more obscure, yet important details of direction, caution and courtesy. This pivotal kind of attention also reminds us of the focus features of technically sophisticated photographic equipment. Thus, we could also consider improving alertness as a high-tech approach to how we use the mind.
While driving, our priority of the moment becomes paying close attention to our driving. Alertness can then expose a higher concentration of detailing than casual attention. There are many other life experiences that require such heightened attention; actually, any experience that requires us to be concerned about how skillfully we are doing whatever we are doing requires heightened attention.
In our work lives, an employee’s alert attention to important details can play a major role in appropriately justifying a pay raise or even keeping a job. Our alertness while playing games can make the difference between gaining points and winning . . . or losing. Remaining alert while playing a musical instrument helps eliminate mistakes. Practicing alertness in school increases a student’s ability to learn more readily and improve grades. With the unpredictable dynamics of driving, to practice improving our alertness while at the wheel is no less important. In fact, it may at any time be the one place we practice alertness that saves our lives or the lives of others.
Granted, an accident today may be a remote possibility. Nonetheless, just as we wouldn’t go on the highway without auto insurance to prevent financial stress, it behooves us to not go on the highway without an alert mind in order to remain safe and prevent more devastating stress. And just as we would seriously pay attention in any other job that could go awry within only three seconds of distraction, driving warrants such attention, as well—aside from being an excellent way to improve self-awareness.
We must remember, as human civilization has evolved, our species as a whole has not been driving motorized vehicles for even a full century—and at such high speeds for less time. No one can deny that driving has the potential to be hazardous. Perhaps, however, we need to understand more about our own behavior at the wheel than we do. As yet, the most common accidents that result in the most debilitating injuries are still on the roadways. Many of us have already experienced accidents and know others who have been in accidents, too. Some are left with tragic physical problems, including lost limbs and other handicaps.
Do we get enough education to absorb all the criteria we need to, not to just be somewhat familiar with, but keenly aware of — all the important do’s, don’ts, rules and guidelines of driving? Is actual memorization and over-learning a necessary part of keeping ourselves safe on the highway? As civilization becomes more familiar with the complexities of the human mind, there may be many shifts in our priorities—especially the amount of time we spend educating ourselves about certain subjects. Perhaps further education on driving and understanding our own minds better will move much higher on our priorities list.
In concluding this lesson, we will share a few drivers’ tools that identify a number of criteria to be alert about to help ward off potential problems.
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