Safety Hatch

I am an avid fan of the first two Star Trek TV series, along with the movies that accompanied them. In Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan, Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock are having a seemingly casual exchange of words before Kirk is beamed down with his party deep underneath the surface of a planet (with Spock left in charge of the Enterprise). One of the things Kirk said to Spock was the cryptic comment, “Hours seem like days.” Later on, Kirk and his party are marooned under the planet’s surface while his ship is off fighting the ruthless Khan (who can eavesdrop on Kirk and Spock’s radio transmissions). While everyone around him is talking about the strategies they will employ to survive in their new home, Kirk casually opens his communicator, says over it to Spock, “Ready to beam up”, and suddenly everyone is back on board the Enterprise! This happened because Kirk and Spock had their own private code that automatically kicked in at a certain specified time (that no one else knew about, friend or foe).

In a roundabout way, this is what many of us need in our own lives: a private “code” whereby at a certain, specified time (at regular waking intervals), we automatically stop what we’re doing (at least in our minds) and reappraise the directions we are going in. And to listen to our emotional and physical states as well.

Many years ago, I once read a small book written by a jogger who described his own experiences and strategies with his running. One thing that he did and which he recommended was, at certain stages of his running, he would say to himself “safety hatch”, and that would be the time in which he would try to appraise objectively where he was at with his running so far.

The sort of thing that I have been describing so far is designed to “break the limiting patterns” of one’s life (as self-improvement guru Anthony Robbins has described). What if, I take an arbitrary time, say, at :40 past the hour, and use it briefly to evaluate the past hour and determine any corrections that need to be made? Wouldn’t this be a good strategy for anybody, and wouldn’t it go a long way to prevent bad situations from developing? Just a thought that may be worth considering and developing!